IC-NRLF 


• 


LIBRARY 

OF  THE 

UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA. 


OF" 


Mrs.  SARAH  P.  WALS  WORTH. 

Received  October,  1894. 
Accessions  No  .  ^.      Class  No. 


THE  HIGHER  LAW, 


RELATIONS  TO  CIVIL  GOVERNMENT 


WITH    PARTICULAR    REFERENCE    TO 


SLAVEKY, 


THE  FUGITIVE  SLAVE  LAW. 


BY  WILLIAM  HOSMER. 


"THE  LORD  is  OUR  JUDGE,  THE  LORD  is  OUR  LAW-GIVER,  THIS  LORD 
OUR  KING."— -/serial, 


AUBURN: 

DEliBY    &    MILLEE. 
1852. 


p  44 


Entered  according  to  Act  of  Congress,  in  the  year  1S52,  by 

WILLIAM  IIOSMER, 
In  the  Clerk's  Office  of  the  Northern  District  of  New-York. 


TO 
WILLIAM  H.   SEWARD, 

LATE  GOVERNOR  OF  THE  STATE  OF  NEW- YORK,  AND  NOW 
SENATOR  OF  THE  UNITED  STATES  : 

SIR — The  permission  which  I  have,  to  inscribe 
this  volume  to  you,  is  gratefully  acknowledged. 
The  title  was  suggested  by  incidents  connected  with 
yourself,  and  it  was  therefore  fit  that  the  work 
should  go  out  to  the  world  with  the  alliance  of 
your  name.  But  other  reasons  were  not  wanting : 
the  eminent  ability  and  patriotism  with  which, 
on  all  occasions,  whether  in  the  executive  chair,  or 
in  the  national  legislature,  or  at  the  bar,  you  have 
defended  the  rights  of  humanity,  entitle  you  to  the 
lasting  gratitude  of  your  countrymen,  and  render  it 
proper  for  them,  in  every  suitable  way,  to  express 
their  high  regard  for  your  services. 

THE   AUTHOR. 


PREFACE. 


IT  affords  me  no  small  pleasure  to  speak  for  those 
who  cannot  speak  for  themselves.  The  slave,  man 
acled  and  dumb,  is  forbidden  to  assert,  either  by 
word  or  deed,  his  right  to  the  inalienable  and  price 
less  inheritance  of  liberty.  In  this  sad  condition, 
who  shall  more  deeply  sympathize  with  the  bond 
man,  or  more  strenuously  advocate  his  claims,  than 
the  ministers  of  Him  who  came  u  to  proclaim  liberty 
to  the  captives,  and  the  opening  of  the  prison  doors 
to  them  that  are  bound  ?"  But  there  is  more  than 
a  work  of  mercy  involved  in  this  issue.  The  highest 
principles  of  the  Christian  faith  have  been  impugned, 
and  if  ministers  were  inclined  to  stand  aside,  they 
could  not,  without  an  utter  forfeiture  of  character. 
It  is  their  business  to  proclaim  the  Higher  Law,  and 
the  Higher  Law  as  paramount  to  all  other  laws. 
They  are  heralds  of  the  kingdom  of  God,  and  when 
that  kingdom  is  contemned,  they  must  appear  in 
its  defence,  or  Christ  is  betrayed  in  the  house  of  hi& 

friends.    This  task  is  incidental  to  the  statesman, 
1* 


VI  PREFACE. 

but  not  to  the  minister,  for  he  is  charged  with  this 
very  work — he  is  set  for  the  defence  of  the  Gospel. 

The  reader  will  find  here  a  full  and  consecutive 
development  of  those  principles  which,  in  another 
relation  to  the  public,  I  have  felt,  and  still  feel,  it 
my  duty  to  maintain.  Others  may  view  the  subject 
differently,  but  I  cannot  have  a  clear  conscience 
and  remain  silent  in  the  presence  of  such  injustice 
to  man,  and  such  impiety  to  God.  "First  pure, 
then  peaceable,"  should  be  our  motto.  The  question 
is  no  longer  diminutive  and  local.  It  fills  the  whole 
land,  and  compels  every  man  to  take  a  position  on 
one  side  or  the  other — against  slavery  or  against 
liberty.  There  is  no  longer  any  neutral  ground. 

More  commonly  the  occurrences  by  wThich  great 
principles  are  tested,  are  in  themselves  of  slight 
importance.  But  in  the  present  instance  the  re 
verse  is  strikingly  true.  The  very  existence  of  the 
church  and  of  the  government,  is  involved  in  the 
now  pending  question  of  emancipation.  To  all 
human  appearance,  we  must  either  put  away  op 
pression,  or  yield  the  high  religious  and  political 
advantages  we  now  hold. 

AUBUEN,  July  5,  1852. 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER  I. 

PAGE. 

INTRODUCTION, 12 


CHAPTER  II. 

THE  HIGHER  LAW, 18 

CHAPTER  III. 

CIVIL  GOVERNMENT, 36 

CHAPTER  IV. 

LIMITATIONS  OF  CIVIL   GOVERNMENT, 4:1 

CHAPTER  V. 

THE  POWERS  OF  CIVIL  GOVERNMENT, 61 

CHAPTER  VI. 

OBEDIENCE  TO  CIVIL  GOVERNMENT, 75 

CHAPTER  VII. 

IMPROVEMENTS  IN  CIVIL  GOVERNMENT, 80 


viii  CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER  VIII. 

PAGE. 

SLAVERY, 86 

CHAPTER  IX. 

EFFECTS  OF  SLAVERY, 107 

CHAPTER  X. 

SLAVERY  A  CRIME, 123 

CHAPTER  XL 

APOLOGIES  FOR  SLAVERY, 129 

CHAPTER  XII. 

GOVERNMENT  AND   RELIGION   SUBVERSIVE   OF   SLA 
VERY,  140 

CHAPTER  XIII. 

CAPACITY  OF  SLAVES  FOR  CIVIL  GOVERNMENT, .  .  .  .    146 

CHAPTER  XIV. 

THE  FUGITIVE  SLAVE  LAW, 156 

CHAPTER  XV. 

CONSTITUTIONS  AND  COMPROMISES, 174 

CHAPTER  XVI. 

EFFECTS  OF  SLAVERY  ON  THE  FREE  STATES, 180 


CONTENTS.  IX 

CHAPTER  XVII. 

PAOB. 

POSSIBLE  RESULTS, 180 

CHAPTER  XVIII. 

TEE  CONCLUSION. .  200 


• 


THE   HIGHER   LA¥. 


THE  HIGHER  LAW, 


CHAPTER  I. 


IF  human  laws  are  the  highest,  they  certainly 
ought  to  be  obeyed  at  any  and  every  hazard.  Their 
agreement  or  disagreement  with  the  law  of  God  is 
a  matter  of  no  consequence  :  they  may  be  right,  or 
they  may  be  wrong,  but  in  either  case,  if  we  ac 
knowledge  their  supremacy,  the  subject  must  obey, 
and  as  much  in  one  case  as  in  the  other.  This  con 
clusion  cannot  be  resisted,  if  the  premises  on  which 
it  rests  are  allowed  to  stand.  Our  present  inquiry, 
therefore,  is  one  fraught  with  the  deepest  interest 
to  human  welfare.  It  lies  at  the  very  foundation  of 
duty.  The  question  is  alike  important  to  civil  and 
to  religious  obligations. 

It  is  obvious  that  no  ex  cathedra  decision  on  this 
subject  can  avail  any  thing  ;  the  question  of  su 
premacy  —  'if  supremacy  exists  anywhere  —  must  be 
determined  by  an  appeal  to  facts.  Mere  hypothe 
sis  will  not  answer  in  so  serious  a  matter  :  neither 
2 


14:  THE   HIGHER   LAW. 

will  prescription,  nor  tradition.  We  can  rest  on 
nothing  short  of  those  substantial  elements  of  know 
ledge  of  which  our  own  consciousness  takes  cogni 
zance. 

Some  may  consider  the  question  already  settled  — 
a  foregone  conclusion — and  object  to  re-opening  it. 
"We  once  considered  it  so,  at  least  so  far  as  this  coun 
try  is  concerned ;  but  recent  circumstances  have 
materially  changed  this  opinion.  The  supremacy 
of  the  Divine  law  is  no  longer  an  unquestioned  truth 
among  us.  Of  this  we  need  no  other  proof  than  the 
fact,  that  when  a  distinguished  citizen  of  this  state 
lately  declared,  in  the  Senate  of  the  United  States, 
that  u  there  is  a  higher  law  than  the  constitution,"* 
the  declaration,  instead  of  eliciting  an  instant  and 
cordial  approval,  drew  down  upon  him  a  storm  of 
invective.  For  the  utterance  of  a  truth  which  must 
ever  be  fundamental  to  Christianity,  he  was  charged 
with  seditious  and  treasonable  designs  against  the 
government  of  the  country.  These  charges  were 
not  hastily  made,  in  the  excitement  of  debate,  but 
were  the  cool,  deliberate  sentiments  of  men  who 

*  "It  is  true,  indeed,  that  the  national  domain  is  ours.  It  is  true  it  was  ac 
quired  with  the  valor  and  with  the  wealth  of  the  whole  nation.  But  we  hold,  nev 
ertheless,  no  arbitrary  power  over  it.  We  hold  no  arbitrary  authority  over  any 
thing,  whether  acquired  lawfully,  or  seized  by  usurpation.  The  constitution  regu 
lates  our  stewardship ;  the  constitution  devotes  the  domain  to  union,  to  justice,  to 
— ~&-  defence,  to  welfare,  and  to  liberty.  But  there  is  a  higher  law  than  the  constitution, 
which  regulates  our  authority  over  the  domain,  and  devotes  it  to  the  same  noble 
,  purposes.  The  territory  is  a  part,  no  inconsiderable  part,  of  the  common  heritage 
of  mankind,  bestowed  upon  them  by  the  Creator  of  the  universe.  We  are  his  stew 
ards,  and  must  so  discharge  our  trust  as  to  secure  in  the  highest  attainable  degree 
their  happiness." — Speech  of  Gov.  SEWARD  in  the  Senate,  March  12, 1850. 


INTRODUCTION.  15 

speak  only  what  they  think.  They  were  made  again 
and  again,  in  Congress  and  out  of  Congress,  by 
secular  men  and  ecclesiastics,  from  the  press  and  the 
pulpit.  As  a  specimen  of  them  we  give  the  follow 
ing  from  the  Washington  Repiiblic — a  leading  politi 
cal  paper,  published  in  the  District  of  Columbia : 

"  We  have  endeavored  to  show  into  what  labyrinths  of 
error  a  statesman  runs  when  he  acknowledges  a  higher  law 
than  the  constitution,  and  his  oath  to  support  it.  We  need 
not  dwell  more  on  that  point.  We  Lave  seen  that  Mr. 
SEWARD  has  culled  the  field  of  fanatical  declamation  of  its 
choicest  flowers;  and  in  admirable  English  and  neatly  elab 
orated  periods,  avowed  an  independence  of  constitutional 
obligation,  which,  if  followed  by  others,  must  end  in  the  an 
nihilation  of  all  government,  all  law,  all  rights.  Every  other 
man  in  the  United  States  has  just  as  much  right  to  set  up 
a  law  in  his  breast,  '  higher  than  the  constitution,'  as  Mr. 
SEWARD  has.  And  as  constitutional  law  is  the  highest  man 
can  make,  it  follows  that  every  man  may  break  municipal 
and  legislative  law  with  yet  greater  impunity.  Anarchy  and 
bloodshed;  the  law  of  the  strong  arm;  the  law  of  the  sword; 
tha  Lynch  law,  and  kindred  enormities,  are  the  sequence  of 
a  doctrine  like  this.  Anarchy,  in  it»  worst  form ;  and  the 
law  of  force,  in  its  cruelest  aspect." 

When  such  language  as  this  is  allowed  to  pass 
unrebuked,  it  is  time  for  those  who  believe  in  a 
Higher  Law  to  state  their  views  without  equivoca 
tion  or  evasion,  and  with  whatever  of  argument  they 
can  command.  Unless  we  greatly  mistake,  the  first 
principles  of  both  natural  and  revealed  religion  are 


16  THE   HIGHER   LAW. 

openly  assailed.  It  is  "barely  possible,  however,  that 
those  who  hold  the  sentiments  contained  in  the 
above  extract,  only  intend  to  assert  that  human 
enactments  have  a  conditional  supremacy.  They 
mean,  perhaps,  no  more  than  this — 'that  in  the  ar 
rangement  of  Providence,  the  laws  of  man  are  as 
signed  as  an  ultimate  standard  of  right,  to  which  it 
is  the  will  of  God  that  all  men  should  bow  as  to 
himself.  But  this  explanation,  though  it  may  re 
lieve  the  case  of  that  stark  infidelity  which  must 
otherwise  attach  to  it,  is  by  no  means  satisfactory. 
It  is  scarcely  less  objectionable  in  any  respect,  and 
probably  more  mischievous  in  practice,  than  avow 
ed  skepticism.  I  shall  not  here  enter  upon  the  ar 
gument  by  which  this  phase  of  the  question  is  so 
easily  met  and  refuted,  as  it  will  come  up  more 
properly  in  another  place ;  but  it  may  be  well  to 
state,  in  the  outset,  that  all  conclusions  based  upon 
such  an  explanation  are  utterly  sophistical.  ]^o 
higher  law,  existing  under  such  modifications,  can 
have  any  effect  upon  the  conduct  of  men.  We 
may  as  well — and  better — have  infidelity  without 
this  poor  disguise.  The  thin  drapery  of  religion 
thrown  over  the  disgusting  form  of  atheism,  may 
deceive  the  unsuspecting,  but  cannot  change  the 
nature  of  things,  nor  lessen  the  disastrous  conse 
quences  of  error. 

These  statements  sufficiently  disclose  the  motives 
which  have  led  to  this  work.  The  writer  has  no 
wish  to  engage  in  a  semi-political  controversy ;  he 


INTRODUCTION.  IT 

is  quite  willing  to  leave  politics  to  those  to  whom 
such  things  more  immediately  belong.  But  a  full 
conviction  that  a  blow  is  aimed — 'whether  mali 
ciously  or  ignorantly,  he  does  not  say  —  at  the  very 
existence  of  religion  and  the  best  interests  of  the 
state,  leaves  him  not  at  liberty  to  decline  the  inves 
tigation.  !N"or  is  it  probable  that  the  discussion  will 
soon  end.  The  burden  of  determining  anew,  or  at 
least  of  re-asserting  what  are  the  rights  respective 
ly  of  civil  government  and  of  Christianity,  seems  to 
be  thrown  upon  this  age.  The  lessons  of  history 
appear  to  exert  little  influence,  and  the  great  prob 
lem  of  human  rights  must  be  solved  once  more. 
May  it  be,  not  as  heretofore,  on  fields  of  blood  and 
carnage  ;  but  with  the  more  powerful,  yet  bloodless, 
weapons  of  truth  and  righteousness. 

In  conducting  this  discussion  we  shall  not  be  con 
fined  to  any  single  aspect  of  the  subject ;  much  less 
to  a  survey  of  the  Higher  Law  in  the  abstract.  The 
existence  and  claims  of  such  a  law  constitute  an 
all-pervading  truth.  We  shall  find  traces  of  them 
in  every  thing  around  us  —  in  man,  in  civil  govern 
ment,  in  the  external  world,  and  in  whatever  pre 
sents  itself  to  our  observation.  This  is  not  simply 
a  question  of  jurisprudence,  or  of  ethics,  or  of  the 
ology ;  but  rather  of  all  combined — of  truth  in 
general. 


18  THE   HIGHER   LAW. 


CHAPTER  II. 
THE    HIGHEK   LAW. 


SECTION  L 

MANIFESTATION    OF   THE   HIGHEE   LAW. 

THE  law  of  God  is  indicated  in  the  following 
ways : 

1.  By  the  natural  constitution  of  things. 

2.  By  the  course  of  Providence. 

3.  By  direct  revelation. 

NATTJKE. 

That  man  is  not  left  wholly  to  self-regulation,  is 
a  truth  so  obvious  as  to  require  no  proof.  Ijhat  he 
is  a  being  affected  by  influences  beyond  his  control, 
has  never  been  denied,  and  never  can  be  by  any 
sane  mind^j  It  may  be  difficult  to  determine  what 
these  influences  are,  or  to  what  extent  they  are  to 
be  regarded  in  the  practice  of  life ;  but  the  fact  of 
their  existence  admits  of  no  dispute.  One  or  two 
facts  in  relation  to  physical  existence  will  illustrate 
this  remark.  Death,  though  it  may  be  accidental, 
cannot  by  any  possibility  be  prevented.  As  an  ul- 


MANIFESTATION    OF   THE    HIGHER   LAW.  19 

timate  event,  it  is  absolutely  certain.  The  mode  of 
subsistence,  however  it  may  be  varied,  is,  after  all, 
essentially  the  same  in  all  human  beings,  and  wholly 
unalterable.  Man  can  subsist  only  by  nourish 
ment,  received  into  the  system  through  the  appro 
priate  organs  of  nutrition.  Again,  he  must  have  air 
to  breathe,  or  death  immediately  ensues.  The  cir 
culation  of  the  blood  is  another  condition  of  life, 
equally  incontestible. 

That  the  constitution  of  things  clearly  unfolds  a 
higher  law  than  man  can  ordain,  has  been  partly 
shown  in  the  preceding  observations.  But  the  ar 
gument  may  be  extended  much  farther.  No  one 
will  pretend  that  the  several  endowments  and  con 
ditions  of  human  nature  do  not  point  to  certain  cor 
respondencies  in  practical  life.  For  instance,  the 
demand  for  food  evidently  points  to  some  exertion 
to  procure  food,  or,  in  other  words,  to  the  great  law 
of  industry  so  clearly  revealed  in  the  Scriptures' — • 
"  In  the  sweat  of  thy  face  shalt  thou  eat  bread,  till 
thou  return  unto  the  ground."  The  social  feelings 
as  evidently  indicate  that  man  was  made  for  society, 
and  point  to  the  marriage  relation,  no  less  distinct 
ly  than  the  written  word,  which  says,  "  It  is  not 
good  that  the  man  should  be  alone."  "Let  every 
man  have  his  own  wife."  Again,  t^JS.  desire  of  hap 
piness  prevalent  in  every  human  breast,  connected 
as  this  desire  is  with  a  consciousness  of  dependence 
upon  others,  intimates  the  duty  of  reciprocal  kind- 
nes|J  as  plainly  as  the  law,  which  says,  "  Thou  shalt 


20  THE    HIGHER   LAW. 

love  thy  neighbor  as  thyself."  These  are  only  a 
few  of  the  numberless  instances  in  which  the  will 
of  the  Creator  is  made  unmistakably  plain,  by  the 
constitution  that  he  has  given  us,  or  the  circumstan 
ces  in  which  he  has  placed  us.  It  would  not  be 
possible  to  misapprehend  the  design  in  either  of  the 
instances  referred  to  :  at  all  events,  it  would  be  quite 
as  impossible  to  do  so  as  it  would  to  mistake  the 
use  of  our  natural  faculties,  and  attempt  to  walk  on 
the  hands  instead  of  the  feet,  or  to  hear  with  the 
eyes  instead  of  the  ears. 

]^ow,  the  use  of  these  simple  truths  is  this : 
they  show,  beyond  all  controversy,  that  at  least  in 
some  things  we  are  bound  by  conditions — that  is, 
laws — which  we  must  abide,  because  it  is  not  in 
our  power  to  set  them  aside.  That  is  to  say,  physi 
cal  existence  acknowledges  a  higher  law,  whether 
wejntellectually  and  morally  acknowledge  it  or  not. 
\/'  The  question  then,  so  far  as  relates  to  some  kind 
of  a  law,  is  settled. 

But  we  are  in  search  of  a  moral  law,  and  until 
this  is  found,  it  does  not  become  positively  certain 
that  man  may  not  do  as  he  pleases  in  things  of  a 
moral  character.  If  we  admit  the  claims  of  Chris 
tianity,  the  argument  is  at  an  end,  for  that  is  pro 
fessedly  a  revelation  of  the  law  of  God.  Or  if  we 
even  admit  the  existence  of  God,  the  result  is  the 
same.  The  nature  of  God  makes  him  the  Supreme 
Lawgiver.  He  could  not  be  God  if  he  were  not  the 
highest ;  and  if  the  highest  in  any  thing,  then  is  he 


MANIFESTATION   OF   THE   HIGHER   LAW.  21 

the  highest  in  every  thing — in  morals  as  well  as  in 
physics.  But  if  even  his  existence  is  denied,  the 
conclusion  yet  remains  good,  that  there  must  be  a 
higher  law.  We  have  seen  that  physical  life,  or 
nature,  is  "  held  fast  in  fate,"  and  this,  irrespective 
of  all  questions  touching  the  existence  or  non-exist 
ence  of  a  Supreme  Being.  Our  moral  nature,  what 
ever  it  may  be,  is  circumscribed  by  limits  and 
conditions  strictly  analogous.  As  we  cannot  resist 
death,  nor  live  without  nourishment,  so  neither  can 
we  carry  virtue,  or  any  crime,  beyond  a  given  extent. 
Man's  will  is  not  supreme  in  the  department  of  mor 
als.  He  cannot  love  and  hate  the  same  being  at 
the  same  time ;  nor  can  he  be  good  and  bad  at  the 
same  time.  He  cannot  blend  vice  and  virtue,  nor 
change  the  nature  of  the  one  or  the  other.  What 
is  right,  is  right  in  spite  of  him  ;  and  what  is  wrong, 
is  wrong  in  spite  of  him.  Hence  it  is  clear  that  in 
these  particulars  he  is  controlled  by  a  law  above 
himself,  the  conditions  of  which  he  is  unable  to 
change,  and  the  authority  of  which  he  is  equally 
unable  to  throw  off.  He  is,  moreover,  unable  to 
separate  himself  from  moral  character ;  his  nature 
has  in  it  the  elements  of  morality,  and  he  may  be 
either  good  or  bad,  but  he  cannot  avoid  both  of 
these  conditions,  and  remain  exempt  from  either 
virtue  or  vice.  I^or  can  the  influence  of  numbers 
make  any  difference  in  his  moral  relations.  The 
united  voice  of  the  race  might  decree  that  vice  should 
be  virtue,  and  virtue  vice ;  or,  that  neither  vice  nor 


22  THE   HIGHER   LAW. 

virtue  should  have  any  existence,  and  the  decree 
would  be  just  as  powerless  as  if  it  had  affirmed  that 
man  should  not  die. 

PROVIDENCE. 

Providence  is  the  term  which  we  employ  to  des 
ignate  the  course  of  nature.  The  constitution  of 
things  proclaims  for  wThat  they  are  fitted,  but  it  does 
not  necessarily  determine  what  their  practical  ope 
ration  shall  be.  ISTot  that  the  things  themselves 
have  powrer  to  change  their  destiny,  but  that  the 
Author  of  nature  may  not  be  governed  by  what 
seems  to  us  the  natural  use  of  the  things  he  has 
made.  Is  the  Divine  providence,  then,  in  accord 
ance  with  the  natural  constitution  of  things,  or  not  ? 
The  affirmative  of  this  question  is  certain,  beyond 
all  contingency.  "We  have  already  seen  that  the 
great  laws  of  man's  physical  and  moral  being  are 
sovereign — that  they  are  not  subject  to  his  will,  and 
cannot  be  set  aside  by  him — -that  they  are  woven 
into  his  nature,  and  must  have  their  course.  The 
question  now  arises — Have  these  laws,  thus  wrought 
into  the  constitution  of  man,  declined  ?  Are  there 
any  exceptions? — -and  if  so,  do  they  indicate  that 
the  universal  law  is  not  steadily  maintained  in  the 
government  of  the  world  ?  The  course  of  Providence 
seems  to  be  eminently  in  harmony  with  the  creative 
law.  Death  is  no  more  incidental  than  it  was  at  first ; 
Mortality  prevails  over  all  men  with  the  same  un- 
i  bating  certainty  that  it  did  over  the  first  genera- 


MANIFESTATION   OF   THE   HIGHER   LAW.  23 

tion.  The  mode  of  subsistence  is  likewise  unvaried. 
Food  and  air,  and  the  operation  of  the  vital  func 
tions,  are  just  as  indispensable  now  as  they  ever 
were.  Remoter  laws  also  are  equally  unimpaired. 
The  earth  still  yields  its  harvest  only  to  the  hand  of 
industry ;  the  social  relations  still  have  their  full 
attractive  force,  and  confer  the  same  benefits  as  of 
old.  ISTor  is  charity  less  indispensable  than  it  used 
to  be.  In  these  respects  all  things  remain  as  they 
were  from  the  beginning ;  the  creation  and  perpetu 
ation  of  the  race  involve  precisely  the  same  prin 
ciples. 

The  moral  administration  of  Providence  is  mark 
ed  by  the  same  exact  regard  to  constitutional  prin 
ciples.  Man  has  not  been  able  to  surpass  himself; 
his  crimes  and  his  virtues  are  still  those  of  man. 
He  has  not  done  either  good  or  bad  as  he  might 
have  done,  had  it  been  possible  for  him,  at  will,  to 
rise  above  or  sink  below  the  powers  which  God  has 
given  him.  Good  is  good,  and  bad  is  bad — now  as 
heretofore.  Virtue  finds  its  reward,  and  vice  its 
punishment,  with  as  much  certainty  as  at  any  former 
period — that  is,  invariably.  We  say,  invariably, 
because  there  are  only  slight  exceptions  in  the  ac 
tual  result,  and  none  at  all  in  the  administrative 
law.  Any  apparent  irregularity  which  we  may  de 
tect,  grows  out  of  the  almost  incomprehensible  sweep 
of  retributive  Providence.  This  is  only  a  prelimi 
nary  state,  and  the  conduct  of  its  affairs  must,  in 
some  degree,  be  modified  by  considerations  connect- 


24:  THE   HIGHER   LAW. 

ed  with  a  future  world.  But  this  is  no  abatement 
of  order — no  variation  of  principle — no  change  of 
law.  The  effect  may  be  delayed,  but  the  cause  does 
not  cease  to  operate.  The  culprit  may  be  shielded 
for  a  time,  yet  vengeance  is  sure  to  overtake  him, 
unless  he  repents.  God  does  not  relinquish  his  pur 
pose.  We  conclude,  then,  that  the  course  of  Provi 
dence  is  affirmative  of  all  natural  indications.  The 
Governor  of  the  universe  is  carrying  out  the  designs 
of  the  Creator. 

REVELATION. 

Of  the  will  of  God,  as  manifested  in  revelation, 
but  little  need  be  said.  It  is  too  plain  and  too  de 
cisive  to  require  comment  in  a  preliminary  inquiry 
like  this.  If  we  admit  revelation  at  all,  we  admit 
it  in  its  character  of  law.  That  the  revealed  word 
of  God  sanctions  and  upholds  all  the  great  princi 
ples  embodied  in  the  constitution  of  the  world,  is  a 
self-evident  truth.  The  Bible  is  the  Higher  Law,  in 
fact  and  in  form.  It  is  a  formal  announcement  of 
the  Divine  will  as  the  Divine  will.  In  it  God,  in  his 
character  of  Creator,  and  Upholder,  and  Governor  of 
all  things,  prescribes  to  man  the  rules  of  duty,  ac 
companied  by  all  necessary  prohibitions  and  penal 
ties.  What  is  silently  expressed  by  creation  and 
providence,  in  the  Scriptures  is  made  to  assume  the 
shape  of  speech.  That  more  is  comprehended  in 
the  written  word  than  in  the  teachings  of  nature, 
was  to  be  expected,  and  does  not  vary  the  case, 


MANIFESTATION    OF   THE   HIGHER    LAW.  25 

since  the  difference  is  only  in  degree  and  not  in  kind. 
As  in  nature  the  law  is  expressed  in  the  work,  so  in 
revelation  the  law  is  contained  in  the  word.  Hence 
the  terms  word  and  law  are  often  used  interchang- 
ably  in  the  sacred  writings.  The  creature  could  not 
exist  without  its  inherent  constitutional  or  organic 
law ;  neither  can  the  wTord  of  God  exist  without  its 
essential  qualities  —  supremacy,  holiness,  wisdom, 
benevolence.  This  word  is  undoubtedly  the  bright 
est,  latest,  fullest  manifestation  of  law  that  can  be 
conceived.  It  is  God  breaking  the  silence  of  eter 
nity  with  an  audible  utterance  of  his  own  character 
and  purposes.  Where  nature  but  hinted,  this  gives 
a  full  exposition ;  and  so  copious  is  the  information, 
that  nothing  but  irreverent  curiosity  or  selfish  pride 
can  ask  for  more.  It  is  true  that  Divinity  assumed 
the  office  of  Lawgiver,  when  the  unalterable  rela 
tions  of  things  were  fixed ;  that,  however,  was  not 
all  the  law  man  required — nature's  code  was  not 
enough  to  meet  all  his  wants — he  had  hopes  and 
fears  that  could  not  be  satisfied  till  life  and  immor 
tality,  with  all  their  conditions,  were  brought  to 
light  through  the  gospel.  He  needed  not  a  higher 
law  than  had  been  stamped  upon  nature,  but  a  re- 
anirmation  of  the  original  decree,  with  the  addition 
of  such  provisions  and  illustrations  as  are  rendered 
necessary  by  the  present  lapsed  condition  of  human 
ity.  Having  this,  he  needs  no  more. 


26  THE    HIGHER   LAW. 


SECTION  II. 

CHARACTER     OF     THE     HIGHER     LAW. 

IN  characterizing  the  Divine  law,  we  shall  of  course 
have  reference  to  its  most  perfect  form — to  the  writ 
ten  word — and  especially  to  that  written  upon  ta 
bles  of  stone.  But  where  shall  we  begin !  The  law 
itself  is  a  wonder — an  aggregate  of  wonders.  All 
Scripture  wras  given  by  inspiration,  but  the  law  was 
written  with  the  finger  of  God.  From  this  assem 
blage  of  magnificent  requirements  it  is  not  easy  to 
select,  even  for  the  purpose  of  admiration — so  fully 
has  Godhead  left  its  stamp  on  every  part.  All  is 
equally  excellent,  and  equally  authoritative — not 
one  jot  or  tittle  shall  fail.  Resistance  in  the  least, 
is  resistance  in  the  greatest ;  "  for  whosoever  shall 
keep  the  whole  law,  and  yet  offend  in  one  point,  he 
is  guilty  of  all."  It  is  here  as  in  the  chain  of  na 
ture — • 


-whatever  link  you  strike, 


Tenth  or  ten-thousandth,  breaks  the  chain  alike." 

Each  precept  is  clothed  with  all  the  authority  of  the 
Eternal,  and  disobedience,  however  slight,  sets  that 
authority  at  defiance. 

It  will  readily  be  admitted  that  this  law  is  an 
adumbration  of  its  author.  God  himself  shines  forth 
in  every  word.  The  law  of  God — -whether  we  un 
derstand  thereby  the  several  precepts  he  has  given, 
or  the  Scriptures  generally — is  a  revelation  of  his 


CHARACTER   OF   THE   HIGHER   LAW.  27 

mind,  and  will,  and  nature,  incomparably  more  per 
fect  than  could  be  obtained  by  any  other  means  in 
this  life.  We  must  not,  however,  forget  that  this 
law  is  not  himself.  It  may  be  like  him — a  trans 
cript  of  his  mind' — but  it  is  no  more  than  a  trans 
cript.  So  man  bears  the  image  of  God,  but  man  is 
not  God. 

Thus,  while  we  do  not  deify  the  law,  we  never 
theless  make  it  the  perfect  work  of  a  perfect  God. 
We  do  not  worship  the  law,  but  accept  it  as  a  bright 
and  beneficent  expression  of  the  Divine  character, 
and  as  the  only  sufficient  rule  for  the  government 
of  conduct.  The  points  to  which  we  wish  more 
particularly  to  direct  attention  are  the  following : 

SUPREMACY. 

Man's  nature  being  subordinate,  can  never  rise 
above  the  Divine  law.  A  law  of  God  once  given, 
remains  in  force  till  repealed  by  Him  who  gave  it. 
We  cannot  exempt  ourselves,  because  the  relation 
between  Him  and  us  cannot  be  changed.  Between 
the  creature  and  the  Creator — the  finite  and  the 
Infinite — there  must  ever  be  the  same  undimmish- 
ed  difference.  In  Him  centres  the  right  to  rule,  and 
in  us  the  necessity  to  obey.  He  is  ever  God,  and 
wre  are  ever  his  creatures.  There  can  be  no  change 
of  natures.  He  cannot  cease  to  be  God,  nor  we  to 
be  men.  This,  duly  considered,  must  forever  estab 
lish  his  claims,  not  barely  in  the  things  where  we 
have  his  special  direction,  but  as  our  Supreme  Gov- 


28  THE   HIGHER   LAW. 

ernor,  whose  authority  is  always  to  be  acknowledg 
ed,  even  though  we  may  not  be  able  to  ascertain 
his  will. 

Men  have  ingeniously  sought  to  evade  the  force 
of  this  law  by  alleging  that  its  supremacy  is  con 
fined  to  particular  departments  of  duty.  It  has  been 
affirmed,  for  instance,  that  in  matters  of  faith  or  re 
ligion,  the  Bible  is  the  highest  authority,  but  not  in 
matters  of  state.  This  is  a  miserable  evasion.  The 
Divine  supremacy  extends  to  every  thing,  and  to 
one  thing  as  fully  as  to  another.  Matters  of  relig 
ion  are  no  more  under  God's  direction  or  authority 
than  matters  of  state.  His  supremacy  is  universal 
and  unlimited,  throughout  all  time  and  all  space. 
But  it  is  claimed  that  institutions  existing  by  Divine 
authority  are  exponents  of  the  Divine  will,  and  that 
we  are  to  receive  their  decrees  as  the  decree  of  God. 
This,  also,  is  a  fallacy.  Before  God  there  are  no 
institutions  of  the  kind  now  alluded  to ;  he  has 
erected  no  infallibilities  of  a  corporate  or  social 
character.  He  has  not  delegated  his  authority  so  as 
to  sanction  an  infringement  of  his  own  immaculate 
government.  All  institutions,  and  all  men,  in  their 
public  as  well  as  their  private  acts,  are  subject  to 
the  law  of  God.  If  institutions  had  discretionary 
authority  —  if  they  might  do  as  they  pleased,  with 
out  reference  to  the  Bible — 'then  their  enactments, 
though  wrong,  might  be  obligatory.  But  institu 
tions  of  all  kinds  are  as  strictly  bound  as  individuals, 
and  they  have  not  the  slightest  authority  to  do  wrong 


CHARACTER    OF    THE   HIGHER    LAW.  29 

themselves  ;  much  less  have  they  authority  to  com 
pel  others  to  do  wrong.  The  law  of  God  in  refer 
ence  to  all  things  human,  is  semper  et  ubique  eadem — - 
always  and  everywhere  the  same.  How  prepos 
terous,  then,  to  allege  Divine  authority  for  a  wanton 
exercise  of  power !  There  is  no  power  but  of  God. 
Men  have  his  authority  to  do  right,  but  they  never 
can  have  his  authority  to  do  wrong,  or  to  force  oth 
ers  to  do  wrong.  This  wonderful  law  is  over  all 
equally.  The  king  and  the  subject,  the  prince  and 
the  peasant,  are  alike  amenable  for  their  conduct  to 
the  one  Lawgiver,  who  is  able  to  save  or  to  destroy. 
Most  healthful  would  the  entertainment  of  this  es 
sential  truth  be  to  the  heaven-defying  multitudes 
who  arrogate  to  themselves  entire  self-control,  be 
cause  God  has  laid  upon  them  certain  duties  involv 
ing  the  exercise  of  common-sense. 

HOLINESS. 

The  purity  of  the  law  is  another  of  its  peculiari 
ties.  "  The  law  is  holy,  and  the  commandment  ho 
ly,  and  just,  and  good."  It  must  be  so,  for  a  holy 
God  could  not  be  the  author  of  an  unholy  law.  His 
law  must  be,  like  himself,  infinitely  pure.  Nor  does 
this  wonderful  purity  now  from  any  contingency ; 
it  is  not  an  incident  attaching  to  the  Divine  law. 
God  made  the  law  in  accordance  with  the  eternal 
and  immutable  integrity  of  his  own  nature.  He 
could  not  make  an  unholy  law.  It  is  this  essential 
attribute  of  his  law  which  makes  it  so  unwelcome 


30  THE   IIIGHEE   LAW. 

to  wicked  men.  To  all  such,  the  law  is  a  voice  of 
condemnation,  because  their  deeds  are  evil.  The 
pure  requirements  of  the  Most  High  impose  a  sove 
reign  restraint  upon  corrupt  nature.  Hence,  the 
rebellion  among  the  wicked — they  cannot  endure 
commands  that  check  so  effectually  the  cherished 
propensities  of  their  depraved  hearts.  "  The  carnal 
mind  is  enmity  against  God — it  is  not  subject  to 
the  law  of  God,  neither  indeed  can  be."  It  is  this 
amazing  truth  that  gives  such  especial  importance 
to  the  doctrine  of  regeneration.  "  Without  holiness 
no  man  shall  see  the  Lord,"  because  no  man,  with 
out  this  qualification,  can  be  at  peace  with  him. 
God  and  the  wicked  are  necessarily  and  eternally 
enemies—  except  as  the  latter  may  be  saved  from 
their  sins.  The  conditions  of  the  Divine  adminis 
tration  are  reformation  or  destruction.  The  sinner 
must  repent  or  perish. 

WISDOM. 

Here  only  has  law  an  indisputably  perfect  adap 
tation.  Its  application  to  man  is  especially  remark 
able.  Human  laws  bear  heavily  upon  us  at  many 
points.  Ignorance,  and  selfishness,  and  depravity, 
have  corrupted  legislation,  till  earth  groans  under 
legalized  wickedness.  ]STot  so  with  the  code  of 
heaven.  Its  strictest  prohibitions,  its  severest  pen 
alties,  and  its  highest  injunctions,  are  alike  admi 
rably  adapted  to  the  wants  of  humanity.  Man 
needs  just  such  restraints,  just  such  penalties,  and 


CHARACTER   OF   THE   HIGHER   LAW.  31 

just  such  commands.  "Not  one  enactment  too  few, 
not  one  too  many  ;  not  one  too  lax,  not  one  too  strin 
gent.  What  a  harmonious  blending  of  authority 
with  constitutional  wants !  Verily,  none  but  the 
Creator  could  have  instituted  such  control.  The 
governing  power  is  applied  to  man  as  gently  as  the 
seasons  are  to  nature,  or  as  the  elements  are  to  his 
body.  The  air  we  breathe,  the  light  which  we  see, 
the  water  which  laves  us,  the  fire  that  warms  us, 
and  the  food  which  nourishes  us,  are  not  more  care 
fully  and  wisely  adjusted  to  our  physical  powers, 
than  are  these  written  laws  to  the  government  of 
our  moral  nature.  Let  the  skeptic  reflect  on  this 
mysterious  gentleness  of  Omnipotence,  and  learn  to 
adore  a  power  which  never  exerts  itself  amiss. 

BENEVOLENCE. 

The  law  is  essentially  good,  and  therefore  benev 
olent.  It  is  not  impracticable,  nor  unreasonable.  It 
is  an  infallible  rule  for  the  conduct  of  life.  It  is  the 
exact  truth  in  reference  to  duty — 'the  true  secret  of 
success — the  only  key  to  happiness  and  heaven. 
Those  who  would  enter  into  life  must  keep  the  com 
mandments.  These  commandments  are  not  arbitra 
ry  tests  of  authority,  imposed  by  unlimited  power ; 
but  the  true  theory  of  life,  comprising  directions  for 
the  certain  attainment  of  the  highest  felicity.  Such 
a  rule  is  priceless,  because  it  sets  aside  all  error,  and 
prevents  the  waste  and  misdirection  of  human  en 
ergies. 


32  THE   HIGHER   LAW. 

SECTION  III. 

OBJECTS     OF     THE    HIGHER     LAW. 

THE  general  design  of  the  law  will  readily  be  in 
ferred  from  its  character.  A  law  so  high  and  holy, 
so  truthful  and  wise,  could  not  have  a  low  purpose, 
nor  any  purpose  less  exalted  than  the  conservation 
of  those  to  whom  it  was  given.  The  law  accom 
plishes  this  object  by  affording  to  all,  protection,  in 
struction  and  ennoblement. 

1.  Human  laws  may  work  oppression  instead  of 
protection ;  but  the  law  of  God  neither  oppresses 
any,  nor  allows  any  to  be  oppressed.  It  protects 
the  rights  of  all,  and  this  too  in  all  respects.  By 
banishing  every  sin,  and  demanding  universal  ho 
liness,  it  ensures  to  each  and  all  equal  and  exact 
justice.  This  law  leaves  nothing  to  human  caprice — • 
it  knows  neither  high  nor  low,  but  places  all  on  a 
level,  and  requires  every  one  to  do  according  to  his 
ability.  The  strong  cannot  trample  upon  the  weak, 
for  all  rights  are  equally  sacred  before  God,  "  who, 
without  respect  of  persons,  judge th  according  to 
every  man's  work."  !N"o  institution,  whether  Di 
vine  or  human,  can  depart  from  this  protective  and 
immaculate  character,  without  corruption.  What 
ever  oppresses  or  injures,  is  at  war  with  God  and  his 
creatures.  Even  the  severest  punishments  under 
the  Divine  administration  are  not  oppressive,  be- 


OBJECTS   OF   THE   HIGHER   LAW.  33 

cause  they  are  not  unjust — not  inconsistent  with, 
infinite  holiness,  wisdom,  and  goodness.  That  an 
institution  is  Divine,  cannot  therefore  be  made  an 
apology  for  infringing  on  the  rights  of  man,  or  of 
any  other  class  of  beings. 

2.  The  instruction  afforded  by  this  law  relates  to 
all  practical  goodness.  It  supplies  the  rule  for  do 
ing  whatever  man  is  called  to  do.  It  is  not  an  ap 
proximation  of  the  right — -not  a  problematical  and 
doubtful  rule,  which  may  or  may  not  eventuate  in 
success ;  but  an  authoritative  and  infallible  guide 
to  righteousness.  The  instructive  tendency  of  this 
law  is  finely  characterized  in  the  following  passage  : 
"  The  law  of  the  Lord  is  perfect,  converting  the  soul: 
the  testimony  of  the  Lord  is  sure,  making  wise  the 
simple.  The  statutes  of  the  Lord  are  right,  rejoic 
ing  the  heart :  the  commandment  of  the  Lord  is 
pure,  enlightening  the  eyes.  The  fear  of  the  Lord 
is  clean,  enduring  forever :  the  judgments  of  the 
Lord  are  true  and  righteous  altogether.  More  to  be 
desired  are  they  than  gold,  yea  than  much  fine  gold  : 
sweeter  also  than  honey  and  the  honey-comb.  More 
over  by  them  is  thy  servant  warned  ;  and  in  keeping 
of  them  is  great  reward."  But  the  special  advantage 
which  this  law  confers  is  a  knowledge  of  the  invisi 
ble  state,  and  of  man's  duty  relating  thereto.  Its 
requirements  appertain  not  wholly  to  this  life,  but 
also  to  that  which  is  to  come.  Future  rewards  and 
punishments,  with  all  their  interminable  duration 
and  unfathomable  mystery,  are  brought  to  bear  up- 


34  THE   HIGHER   LAW. 

on  human  conduct.     Man  is  taught  not  only  how 
to  live,  but  how  to  live  forever. 

3.  Not  less  wonderful  is  this  law  for  the  dignity 
which  it  confers  on  humanity.  Aside  from  the  Bible, 
how  perfectly  brutish  is  man !  He  belongs  to  the 
soil  as  much  as  the  trees  of  the  field,  and  his  whole 
life  is  spent  in  catering  to  the  flesh.  He  has  no 
hope,  and  is  without  God  in  the  world.  A  low 
round  of  pleasures  and  pursuits,  purely  animal,  and 
often  vicious,  occupy  him  till  the  grave  opens  to 
hide  his  insignificance.  How  is  the  scene  changed 
when  the  law  of  God  is  given  to  such  a  being !  The 
clod  rises  to  a  man — the  brute  puts  on  the  linea 
ments  of  a  God.  Before,  all  was  bounded  by  earth 
and  time :  now,  heaven  and  eternity  are  necessary 
ideas — considerations  taken  into  the  account  when 
ever  any  thing  is  to  be  done,  or  to  be  left  undone. 
The  law  of  God  is,  in  short,  a  pledge  of  extended 
duration,  and  of  interests  in  other  worlds.  All 
the  distressing  darkness,  and  brevity,  and  poverty, 
which  hang  over  life,  disappear  at  this  authoritative 
call  to  obey  the  mandate  of  the  King  Immortal. 
The  present  life  no  longer  seems  abortive  ;  it  is  seen 
as  the  grand  initiative  to  a  still  grander  life.  Death, 
so  fearful  and  hopeless  to  those  who  know  not  God, 
under  this  law  becomes  a  simple  and  unspeakably 
gainful  transition.  It  does  but  bring  the  Christian 
into  the  more  immediate  presence  of  his  great  em 
ployer,  and  into  that  land  where  the  recompense  of 
obedience  is  fully  meted  out. 


OBJECTS    OF   THE   HIGHER   LAW.  35 

"  0  'tis  a  glorious  boon  to  die ! 
This  favor  can't  be  prized  too  high." 

Much  of  this  firm  confidence  we  owe  to  the  fact, 
that  we  are  bound  by  the  law  of  God  to  an  account 
ability  in  another  world.  Obligations  are  not  dis 
charged  by  death  ;  the  grave,  all-destroying  as  it  is, 
cannot  destroy  the  claims  of  heaven. 

Such  are  the  objects  of  that  law  by  which  men 
ought  to  be  governed,  and  by  which  they  must  be 
judged.  The  law,  like  its  author,  is  open  to  con 
tempt  ;  it  can  be  vilified,  if  any  choose,  but  not 
with  impunity ;  it  can  be  violated,  if  any  dare, 
but  not  without  death.  "  The  soul  that  sinneth,  it 
shall  die."  There  is  no  parade  of  authority,  no  dis 
play  of  power,  no  bugbear  terrors  to  frighten ;  and 
yet  the  doom  of  the  transgressor  is  as  fixed  as  fate. 
God  is  not  trifling  with  men :  they  must  be  good — • 
good  as  his  law  requires  —  or  perish.  ]STor  is  this 
goodness  to  be  expected  somewhere  else,  or  this  law 
more  fitting  another  place.  We  are  to  do  his  will 
here  on  earth  as  it  is  done  in  heaven.  The  law  of 
God  is  the  very  best  law  for  this  world,  and  the 
only  law  which  ensures  justice  and  happiness  to 
mankind. 

We  are  now  to  turn  our  attention  to  Civil  Law, 
as  a  subordinate  agency  in  carrying  out  the  designs 
of  the  Great  Lawgiver. 


36  THE   HIGHER   LAW. 


CHAPTER  III. 
CIVIL    GOYEK1OIENT. 

ITS     ORIGIN    AND    DESIGN. 

CIVIL  Government  was  not  instituted  by  Christi 
anity  :  it  is  an  institution  of  nature,  confirmed  and 
sanctioned  by  Christianity.  Man,  in  the  present 
condition  of  his  nature,  cannot  exist  in  society,  with 
out  feeling  the  need  of  government.  He  wants  se 
curity,  which  he  cannot  have  in  the  absence  of  civil 
law.  As  this  want  is  common  to  all  men,  we  find 
all  men  inclined  to  establish  and  support  some  kind 
of  governmental  regulation,  which  shall  meet  the 
exigencies  of  their  condition.  In  this  view  of  the 
subject,  government  has  very  much  the  nature  of  a 
voluntary  compact.  But  the  actual  origin  of  gov 
ernment  is  modified  by  two  facts.  First:  The  con 
dition  of  man  at  the  commencement  of  society,  was 
not  such  as  to  admit  of  a  compact.  The  original 
pair  were  the  only  adults,  till  their  own  children 
had  grown  up,  and  all  the  government  possible,  un 
der  the  circumstances,  wras  self-government.  On 
the  parents,  of  course,  devolved  the  duty  of  govern- 


CIVIL    GOVERNMENT.  37 

ing  their  offspring,  but  not  by  contract — it  was  a 
duty  growing  out  of  the  relation  of  the  parties.  Pa 
rental  government  was  just  as  necessary  as  parental 
support  and  care.  Secondly :  All  men  are  at  first 
infants,  and  enter  into  society  in  a  state  of  infancy ; 
it  follows,  therefore,  that  they  become  members  of 
civil  society  before  they  have  attained  to  the  age  in 
wrhich  a  choice  could  be  made.  Men  are  born  into 
government — they  come  under  its  protection  at  the 
moment  of  their  birth ;  and  this  has  been  the  case 
of  all  who  have  ever  lived,  since  governments  were 
established.  At  first,  government  was  only  paren 
tal,  but  this,  as  men  increased,  gradually  gave  place 
to  what  is  called  civil  government.  Monarchies, 
however,  even  at  this  day,  are  often  not  essentially 
different  from  the  first  type  of  government.  The 
king  is  a  chief  father,  or  great  parent — a  pope — 
whose  will  is  acknowledged  to  be  supreme,  so  far 
as  the  will  of  one  man  may  be  supreme  over  that  of 
another. 

The  further  modification  of  government,  by  the 
introduction  of  written  laws,  and  by  a  division  of 
governmental  powers  among  many,  instead  of  con 
solidating  them  in  one  individual,  is  the  result  of 
that  maturity  to  which  man  attains,  by  education, 
or  experience.  These  modifications  are  not  essen 
tial  to  the  existence  of  government ;  they  are  only 
a  means  of  giving  to  it  greater  perfection. 

The  origin  of  civil  government  shows  conclusively 
what  must  have  been  its  design.  Both  revelation 
3 


38  THE   HIGHER   LAW. 

and  nature  also  concur  in  asserting  that  the  institu 
tion  is  of  a  conservative  and  beneficent  character. 
"  Rulers  are  not  a  terror  to  good  works,  but  to  the 
evil.  Wilt  thou  then  not  be  afraid  of  the  power  ? 
Do  that  which  is  good,  and  thou  shalt  have  praise 
of  the  same.  For  he  is  the  minister  of  God  to  thee 
for  good.  But  if  thou  do  that  which  is  evil,  be 
afraid ;  for  he  beareth  not  the  sword  in  vain :  for 
he  is  the  minister  of  God,  a  revenger  to  execute 
wrath  upon  him  that  doeth  evil."  This  needs  no 
comment ;  and  were  there  any  necessity,  we  might 
support  the  doctrines  of  the  passage  by  a  great  va 
riety  of  scriptures,  all  precisely  of  the  same  import. 

So  far  as  human  authority  is  concerned,  the  best 
exposition  of  the  purposes  of  government  is  that  con 
tained  in  our  own  Declaration  of  Independence,  and 
in  the  Constitution  of  these  United  States  : 

"We  hold  these  truths  to  be  self-evident:  That  all  men 
are  created  equal;  that  they  are  endowed  by  their  Creator 
•with  certain  inalienable  rights;  that  among  these  are  life, 
liberty,  and  the  pursuit  of  happiness.  That  to  secure  these 
rights,  governments  are  instituted  among  men,  deriving  their 
just  powers  from  the  consent  of  the  governed ;  that  when 
ever  any  form  of  government  becomes  destructive  of  these 
ends,  it  is  the  right  of  the  people  to  alter  or  abolish  it,  and 
to  institute  a  new  government,  laying  its  foundation  on 
such  principles,  and  organizing  its  powers  in  such  form,  as 
to  them  shall  seem  most  likely  to  effect  their  safety  and  hap 
piness." — Declaration  of  Independence. 

"  We,  the  people  of  the  United  States,  in  order  to  form  a 
more  perfect  union,  establish  justice,  ensure  tranquillity,  pro- 


CIVIL    GOVERNMENT.  39 

vide  for  the  common  defence,  promote  the  general  welfare, 
and  secure  the  blessings  of  liberty  to  ourselves  and  our  pos 
terity,  do  ordain  and  establish  this  constitution  for  the  United 
States  of  America." — Preamble  to  the  Constitution. 

These  authorities  are  amply  sufficient  to  show  the 
benevolent  design  of  human  laws,  but  I  shall  add  a 
few  others. 

"All  government  has  the  same  general  end,  which  is  that  of 
preservation." — MONTESQUIEU,  Spirit  of  Laws:  b.  11,  ck.  5. 

"  The  Christian  religion  is  a  stranger  to  mere  despotic 
power." — Ibid.:  book  24,  ch.  3. 

"  Considering  the  Creator  only  as  a  being  of  infinite  pow 
er,  he  was  able  unquestionably  to  have  prescribed  whatever 
laws  he  pleased  to  his  creature,  man,  however  unjust  or  se 
vere.  But  as  he  is  a  being  of  infinite  wisdom,  he  has  laid 
down  only  such  laws  as  were  founded  in  those  relations  of 
justice,  that  existed  in  the  nature  of  things  antecedent  to  any 
positive  precept.  These  are  the  eternal,  immutable  laws  of 
good  and  evil,  to  which  the  Creator  himself,  in  all  his  dis 
pensations,  conforms;  and  which  he  has  enabled  human 
reason  to  discover,  so  far  as  they  are  necessary  for  the  con 
duct  of  human  actions.  Such,  among  others,  are  these 
principles :  that  we  should  live  honestly,  should  hurt  nobody, 
and  should  render  to  every  one  his  due;  to  which  three 
general  precepts  Justinian  has  reduced  the  whole  doctrine 
of  the  law," — BLACKSTONE,  Com.,  Intro.:  sec.  2. 

"  We  ought  not,  therefore,  to  separate  the  science  of  pub 
lic  law  from  that  of  ethics,  nor  encourage  the  dangerous 
suggestion,  that  governments  are  not  as  strictly  bound  by 
the  obligations  of  truth,  justice,  and  humanity,  in  relation  to 
other  powers,  as  they  are  in  the  management  of  their  own 
local  concerns." — KENT,  Com.:  sec.  1. 


40  THE   HIGHER   LAW. 

"  The  divine  right  of  kings  is,  like  the  divine  right  of  other 
magistrates  —  the  law  of  the  land,  or  even  actual  and  quiet 
possession  of  their  office  —  a  right  ratified,  we  humbly  pre 
sume,  by  the  Divine  approbation,  so  long  as  obedience  to 
their  authority  appears  to  be  necessary  or  conducive  to  the 
common  welfare.  Princes  are  ordained  of  God,  by  virtue 
only  of  that  general  decree  by  which  he  assents,  and  adds 
the  sanction  of  his  will,  to  every  law  of  society  which  pro 
motes  his  own  purpose,  the  communication  of  human  happi 
ness." — Dr.  PALEY,  Mor.  and  Pol.  Phil.:  book  6,  ch.  4. 

"The  fundamental  principles  which  are  deducible  from 
the  law  of  nature  and  from  Christianity,  respecting  political 
affairs,  appear  to  be  these:  1.  Political  power  is  rightly 
possessed  only  when  it  is  possessed  by  the  consent  of  the 
community.  2.  It  is  rightly  exercised  only  when  it  subserves 
the  welfare  of  the  community.  3.  And  only  when  it  sub 
serves  this  purpose  by  means  which  the  moral  law  permits." 
— DYMOND,  Principles  of  Morality:  essay  3,  ch.  1. 

It  will  not  be  necessary,  I  trust,  to  make  further 
citations,  or  to  adduce  other  arguments,  in  support 
of  this  general  proposition- — That  civil  government 
is  designed  for  the  good  of  mankind.  But  if  this 
be  the  case,  it  follows,  inevitably,  that  such  govern 
ment  is  perverted,  whenever  it  becomes  oppressive. 
Taking  our  stand  upon  this  fundamental  truth — the 
essential  and  immutable  benevolence  of  the  govern 
mental  institution — we  shall  proceed  to  examine 
the  LIMITATIONS  to  which  it  must  necessarily  be  sub 
jected,  and  the  POWERS  with  which  it  is  legitimately 
invested. 


LIMITATIONS    OF   CIVIL   GOVERNMENT.  41 


CHAPTER  IV. 
LIMITATIONS  OF  CIVIL  GOVERNMENT. 


THESE  limitations  may  be  stated  as  follows  : 

1.  Civil  government  cannot  bind  the  conscience. 

2.  It  cannot  impair  any  other  natural  rights  or 
powers  of  mankind. 

3.  It  cannot  release  man  from  his  responsibility 
to  God. 

4.  It  cannot  change  the  nature  of  vice  and  virtue. 


SECTION  I. 

CIVIL    GOVERNMENT    CANNOT   BIND    THE    CONSCIENCE. 

IT  has  always  been  the  aim  of  tyrants  to  invade 
the  conscience.  They  know  if  human  nature  is 
allowed  to  possess  any  rule  of  duty,  superior  to  that 
which  they  prescribe,  that  obedience  will  depend 
very  much  upon  the  character  of  wrhat  is  required. 
A  good  man  will  not  keep  a  bad  law,  if  he  is  left 
to  believe  that  his  own  conscience  should  govern 
his  conduct.  Hence  it  becomes  necessary  to  sub 
vert  the  very  framework  of  the  human  constitution, 


42  THE   HIGHEK   LAW. 

to  make  it  subserve  the  purpose  of  oppression. 
Government  cannot  be  made  an  engine  of  despot 
ism  till  it  has  done  violence  to  the  moral  system  of 
man.  Conscience  is  that  faculty  by  which  we  dis 
tinguish  between  right  and  wrong ;  it  is  the  moral 
sense,  and  essential  to  the  constitution  of  moral 
agency.  If  this  natural  faculty,  which  the  Creator 
has  fixed  in  the  human  soul,  is  under  the  control  of 
government,  then  obedience  is  due  to  law,  whatever 
may  be  its  character.  Human  law  becomes  the 
highest  law  known  to  man,  and  all  deviations  from 
it  are  justly  punishable.  Against  this  enormous 
outrage  on  the  rights  of  man — this  utter  prostitu 
tion  of  civil  authority — it  behooves  all  who  value 
the  peace  and  welfare  of  society,  to  enter  their  sol 
emn  protest.  The  following  considerations  will 
place  the  subject  in  its  true  light : 

1.  It  subverts  the  design  of  government.     WQ 
have  seen  that  the  institution  of  law  was  intended 
for  the  benefit,  and  not  for  the  injury  of  man ;  it 
follows,  therefore,  that   any  violence  done  to  the 
human  faculties,  is  an  abuse  of  governmental  pow 
ers.      The  Creator  established  law  to  operate   in 
conjunction  with  conscience,  and  not  irrespective 
of  it ;  much  less  did  he  intend  that  law  should  mar 
his  work,  by  usurping  control  over  the  moral  faculty. 

2.  But  the  thing  is  physically  impossible.     Con 
science  may  be  destroyed,  but  it  cannot  be  bound. 
We  may  extinguish  the  light  which  God  has  placed 
in  the  soul,  but  we  cannot  change  its  nature.     All 


LIMITATIONS    OF   CIVIL    GOVERNMENT.  43 

attempts  to  bind  conscience  are,  in  reality,  attempts 
to  annihilate  it.  The  use  of  the  moral  faculty  is  to 
judge  of  right  and  wrong,  and  it  has  no  other  use ; 
hence  those  who  interfere  with  its  decisions,  virtually 
say  there  shall  be  no  conscience. 

3.  God  himself  does  not,  by  any  of  his  laws,  in 
vade  this  faculty.   His  laws  are  as  precisely  adapted 
to  our  moral  constitution,  as  the  physical  world  is 
to  our  material  organism.     Light  is  not  more  con 
genial  to  the  eye,  nor  air  to  the  lungs,  than  is  the 
moral  law  of  Jehovah  to  the  moral  faculty  in  man. 

4.  Conscience  is  an  element  of  our  nature,  and 
cannot  be  subj  ected  to  any  human  authority.    Man's 
conscience  is  as  his  eyes,  or  his  hands,  or  his  feet — • 
that  is,  a  part  of  himself — made  such  by  the  Crea 
tor,  and  to  disturb  its  action  is  to  say  that  man  shall 
not  be  man.    The  eyes  are  left  to  see,  and  the  ears 
to  hear,  because  common  sense  has  hitherto  kept  us 
from  the  gross  absurdity  and  injustice  of  restraining 
their  use.     We  may  legislate  against  the  abuse,  but 
not  against  the  use  of  these  faculties.     Law  may  co 
operate  with  nature  in  promoting  the  good  of  man, 
and  this  is  all  it  may  do :  it  can  have  no  power  to 
arrest  the  design,  or  to  change  the  plan  of  nature. 

5.  As  conscience  is  the  faculty  which  constitutes 
us  moral  agents,  it  follows  that  law  cannot  interfere 
without,  at  the  same  time,  transferring  this  moral 
agency.     When  the  law  determines  for  us,  it  must 
release  us  from  all  obligation  to  determine  for  our 
selves.     This  would  be  to  lodge  responsibility  in 


44:  THE   IIIGHEK   LAW. 

government,  where  God  has  never  placed  it,  and 
to  withhold  it  from  man,  who  is  alone  competent  to 
the  trust. 

6.  If  the  law  may  control  conscience  in  one  thing, 
it  may  in  another,  and  so  on,  till  man  becomes  the 
merest  tool  of  government,  and  that,  too,  without 
the  slightest  regard  to  the  moral  character  of  gov 
ernment.  A  bad  action,  if  commanded,  is,  upon 
this  hypothesis,  just  as  obligatory  as  a  good  one. 
]STo  right  to  discriminate  can  be  allowed,  except  by 
giving  to  conscience  its  legitimate  supremacy.  Ei 
ther  conscience  must  be  supreme,  or  man  must  cease 
from  all  distinctions  between  right  and  wrong. 

These  reasons,  we  think,  establish  beyond  success 
ful  contradiction,  both  the  immutability  and  invio- 
lableness  of  conscience.  Able  jurists  have,  however, 
conceded  that  conscience  may  be  bound  in  two 
respects.  First,  in  things  morally  indifferent ;  and 
secondly,  in  things  which  are  morally  right,  as  in 
this  case  the  civil  law  has  the  sanction  of  the  law 
of  God.  As  to  the  first  of  these  distinctions,  it 
does  not  belong  to  this  inquiry,  because  things  mor 
ally  indifferent — if  there  be  any  such  things — can 
have  no  reference  to  conscience.  The  second  par 
ticular  is  more  important,  but  obviously  fallacious. 
Human  laws,  when  just,  have  the  same  force  as  Di 
vine,  we  grant ;  yet  this  does  not  help  the  matter, 
for  the  reason  that  the  Divine  law  no  more  binds 
the  conscience,  than  the  air  we  breathe  binds  the 


LIMITATIONS    OF   CIVIL    GOVERNMENT.  45 

lungs,  or  than  light  binds  the  eye.  Conscience  is  in 
harmony  with  this  law,  but  the  law  no  more  binds 
conscience,  than  conscience  binds  the  law.  The 
law  of  God  is  that  standard  of  perfect  rectitude  with 
which  man's  conscience  was  made  to  agree,  and  the 
agreement  between  them  is  only  a  natural  coinci 
dence  :  it  is  not  a  mastery,  not  a  binding,  in  the 
ordinary  sense  of  these  terms. 

This  view  of  the  subject  places  before  us  the  true 
relation  of  man  to  God's  moral  government.  He 
is  not  bound  as  a  slave ;  his  obedience  is  not  servile — • 
exacted  with  despotic  authority.  It  is  the  hearty 
acquiescence  of  the  good  in  goodness.  It  is  doing 
as  man  was  made  to  do,  that  is,  right  and  only  right, 
forever.  ]N"ot  to  do  good  is  the  soul's  death,  because 
it  was  created  and  fitted  for  this  very  work,  and  for 
none  other.  Obedience  to  God  is  the  natural  ele 
ment  of  man,  and  harmonizes  with  all  his  powers. 
A  pure  law  is  just  as  essential  to  the  moral  consti 
tution  as  pure  air  is  to  the  physical  constitution. 
The  higher  law,  then,  is  conservative,  and  binds  man 
— if  it  can  be  said  to  bind  him  at  all — only  as  food 
binds  the  stomach,  or  as  the  vital  air  binds  the  or 
gans  of  respiration.  Conscience  responds  to  this 
law  with  infinite  pleasure,  and  from  its  nature  must 
inevitably  repel  everything  foreign  to  it.  This 
moral  faculty  is  always  in  accordance  with  the  Di 
vine  law,  because  that  law  is  always  right,  and  it 
accords  with  all  other  laws,  so  far  as  they  are  right, 
and  no  farther. 
3* 


46  THE    HIGHER   LAW. 

How  presumptuous  must  it  be  for  man  to  attempt 
to  bind  a  power  which  God  cannot  bind !  He  re 
spects  his  own  work,  and  legislates  in  accordance 
with  the  faculties  he  has  made  ;  but  man  legislates 
as  he  pleases,  and  then  vainly  endeavors  to  conform 
nature  to  his  futile  and  wicked  laws.  Such  law 
givers  would  not  hesitate  to  chastise  the  sea  to  make 
it  obey  them,  and  they  would  be  quite  as  wisely  em 
ployed  as  they  are  in  laying  commands  upon  con 
science. 


SECTION  II. 

CIVIL    GOVERNMENT  CANNOT   IMPAIR   ANY  OF   THE   NAT 
URAL   RIGHTS    OR   POWERS    OF   MANKIND. 

IT  is  not  necessary  to  go  into  an  enumeration  of 
the  rights  or  powers  of  man,  in  order  to  perceive 
their  true  relation  to  civil  law.  The  summary  state 
ment  of  them  in  the  Declaration  of  Independence  — 
"life,  liberty,  and  the  pursuit  of  happiness"- —is 
quite  sufficient.  They  all  stand  on  the  same  ba 
sis,  and  if  one  falls,  the  rest  cannot  stand.  The 
right  to  life  is  no  more  a  right  than  any  other  en 
dowment  of  man.  It  is  neither  more  sacred,  nor 
more  inalienable,  than  the  right  to  liberty.  Nor 
is  the  right  to  liberty  more  under  the  control  of  law, 
than  the  right  to  see,  or  to  eat,  or  to  walk.  These 


LIMITATIONS   OF   CIVIL   GOVERNMENT.  47 

last,  with  various  others  that  might  be  named, 
are,  like  life  and  liberty,  conditions  of  being.  "We 
have  them  from  God  when  we  have  existence,  and 
so  long  as  existence  remains  these  rights  must  re 
main,  unless  taken  away  by  Him  who  gave  them. 

Why  some  of  these  rights  are  taken  away  by 
legislation,  and  others  not,  can  only  be  accounted 
for  by  the  weakness  of  man.  He  has  never  been 
able,  in  the  utmost  stretch  of  his  tyranny,  to  quite 
subvert  the  entire  endowments  of  his  race.  He 
treats  his  fellow,  however,  as  the  robber  treats  the 
victim  of  his  plunder — that  is,  strips  him  of  what 
ever  is  most  available,  and  lets  him  go.  The  slave 
must  be  allowed  life,  as  that  is  not  a  transferable 
commodity,  and  cannot  be  seized  upon  by  his  mas 
ter  ;  but  he  must  give  up  liberty  and  the  pursuit 
of  happiness,  for  these  have  a  marketable  value. 

That  human  laws  have  no  rightful  power  over 
the  constitutional  endowments  of  man's  nature,  is  a 
truth  recognized  by  the  ablest  jurists.  So  obvious 
indeed  is  this  fact,  that  Blackstone  says,  the  civil 
law  can  neither  take  them  away,  nor  by  giving  them 
its  sanction,  add  any  thing  to  the  authority  by  which 
we  hold  them.  They  are  just  as  much  ours  with 
out,  as  with  legislation — 'that  is  to  say,  they  are 
wholly  beyond  the  reach  of  any  law  that  man  can 
make. 

"  Those  rights  which  God  and  nature  have  established, 
and  are  therefore  called  natural  rights,  such  as  are  life  and 
liberty,  need  not  the  aid  of  human  laws  to  be  more  effectually 


48  THE   HIGHER   LAW. 

invested  in  every  man  than  they  are ;  neither  do  they  re 
ceive  any  additional  strength,  when  declared  by  the  muni- 
cipial  laws  to  be  inviolable.  On  the  contraiy,  no  human 
legislatuie  has  power  to  abridge  or  destroy  them,  unless  the 
owner  shall  himself  commit  some  act  that  amounts  to  a 
forfeiture."  Com.,  Intro.:  sec.  2. 

Man  can  no  more  change  these  God-given  rights 
of  humanity,  than  lie  can  change  the  seasons,  or 
reverse  the  laws  of  physical  existence.  He  may 
affect  to  control  them,  and  so  lie  may  affect  to  con 
trol  the  winds  and  tides,  but  in  neither  case  would 
the  attempt  deserve  serious  consideration.  This  is 
fully  declared  by  the  same  high  authority  to  which 
I  have  just  referred. 

"The  law  of  nature,  being  coeval  with  mankind,  and 
dictated  by  God  himself,  is  of  course  superior  in  obligation 
to  any  other.  It  is  binding  over  all  the  globe,  in  all  coun 
tries,  and  at  all  times;  no  human  laws  are  of  any  validity, 
if  contrary  to  this;  and  such  of  them  as  are  valid  derive 
all  their  force,  and  all  their  authority  mediately  or  immedi 
ately,  from  this  original."  Com.:  sec.  2. 

We  may  go  yet  farther,  and  affirm  with  Dr.  Cud- 
worth,  that  even  God  himself  cannot  force  man  to 
obey  an  unrighteous  law. 

"  We  see,  then,  that  it  is  so  far  from  being  true,  that  all 
moral  good  and  evil,  just  and  unjust,  (if  they  be  anything,) 
are  made  by  mere  will  and  arbitrary  commands,  (as  many 
conceive,)  that  it  is  not  possible  that  any  command  of  God 
or  man  should  oblige,  otherwise  than  by  virtue  of  that 
which  is  naturally  just.  And  though  particular  promises 


LIMITATIONS    OF   CIVIL    GOVERNMENT.  49 

and  commands  be  made  by  will,  yet  it  is  not  will,  but  nature, 
that  obligeth  to  the  doing  of  things  promised  or  commanded, 
or  makes  them  such  things  as  ought  to  be  dune.  For 
mere  will  cannot  change  the  moral  nature  of  actions,  nor 
the  nature  of  intellectual  beings.  And,  therefore,  if  there 
were  no  natural  justice,  that  is,  if  the  rational  or  intellec 
tual  nature  in  itself  were  indetermined  and  unobliged  to 
any  thing,  and  so  destitute  of  all  morality,  it  were  not  pos 
sible  that  any  thing  should  be  made  morally  good  or  evil, 
obligatory  or  unlawful,  or  that  any  moral  obligation  should 
be  begotten  by  any  will  or  command  whatsoever."  Con 
cerning  Eternal  and  Immutable  Morality:  book  1,  chap.  2. 

If  any  object  to  this  position,  let  them  remember 
that  God  cannot  be  unjust,  and  that  it  is,  therefore, 
impossible  for  him  to  command  what  is  not  just. 

Hence  the  idea  of  his  requiring  obedience  to  an 
unrighteous  law,  is  merely  assumed — -no  such  event 
is  possible,  but  if  it  were,  the  result  is  correctly 
stated  above. 

We  obey  every  law  of  God,  because  his  immuta 
ble  wisdom  and  goodness  assure  us,  that  he  cannot 
require  what  is  not  right.  His  perfections  render 
it  safe  to  follow  him  implicitly,  whether  we  com 
prehend  or  not  the  character  of  his  commands. 
Such  assurance,  however,  we  cannot  have  in  refer 
ence  to  any  other  commands.  Man  has  a  fallible  or 
imperfect  goodness ;  God  has  an  infallible  or  per 
fect  goodness  :  therefore  we  obey  the  latter  always, 
and  the  former  when  virtue  will  permit.  Man 
must  either  arrogate  to  himself  the  perfections  of 


50  THE   HIGHER   LAW. 

God,  or  dismiss  all  claims  to  unconditional  obedi 
ence.  The  higher  law  is  an  emanation  from  the 
higher  nature,  and  from  that  only.  This  higher 
nature,  be  it  remembered,  is  the  ample  guaranty 
of  integrity  and  wisdom  in  all  the  laws  which  it 
imposes.  We  submit  cheerfully  to  its  requirements, 
because  we  cannot  distrust  the  source  from  which 
they  proceed.  We  know  that  God  is  competent 
to  do  whatever  he  will,  and  that  he  cannot  will 
that  wrhich  is  not  for  the  best. 

It  is  here  that  human  legislation  fails.  In  forget- 
fulness  of  its  own  incompetency  to  change  the  laws 
of  nature,  it  presumes  to  deal  freely  with  the  con 
stitutional  and  inalienable  rights  of  mankind.  It 
takes  from  one  and  gives  to  another,  as  though  it 
were  charged  with  revising  the  Creator's  work. 
This  utter  heedlessness  of  its  true  province  has 
made  human  government  too  frequently  a  curse  in 
stead  of  a  blessing.  The  evil,  however,  is  not  in  the 
institution,  but  in  its  abuse.  Man  has  usurped  the 
Divine  prerogative — that  of  determining  constitu 
tional  rights — and  consequently  the  distribution  is 
unequal.  By  nature,  all  are  equal  in  fundamental 
immunities,  but  society  interferes,  with  its  impious 
law,  and  defeats  this  benevolent  arrangement,  by 
making  one  man  a  slave,  and  another  his  master. 
All  this  is  done  in  mere  wantonness  of  power,  as 
no  crime  is  pretended,  and  no  necessity  alleged. 
Rights  are  taken  away  from  some,  because  they  can 
be  taken  away,  and  they  are  bestowed  on  others  for 


LIMITATIONS    OF    CIVIL    GOVERNMENT.  51 

the  same  reason.  The  cause  of  such  perversions 
of  civil  authority,  is  substantially  the  same  that 
has  led  to  every  other  species  of  human  wickedness 
— an  evil  heart.  From  this  corrupt  fountain  have 
proceeded  forth,  in  all  ages,  not  only  murders,  thefts, 
and  adulteries,  but  oppressions  and  tyrannies  of 
every  sort. 


SECTION  III. 

CIVIL     GOVERNMENT    CANNOT    RELEASE    MAN    FROM    HIS 
RESPONSIBILITY    TO    GOD. 

THE  following,  among  many  other  reasons,  are 
decisive  on  this  point : 

1.  Civil  government  is  itself  subject  to  the  Di 
vine  law.  "The  powers  that  be  are  ordained  of 
God,"  and  are  therefore  responsible  to  him.  This 
could  not  be  otherwise,  unless  on  the  monstrous 
supposition  of  atheism — that  there  is  no  God.  In 
this  case  there  would  be  no  power  above  civil  rulers, 
and  the  practical  effect  would  be  the  same  as  if  gov 
ernment  were  not  subject  to  Divine  authority, 
though  in  such  circumstances  the  exemption  would 
not  affect  government  alone ;  it  would  release  sub 
jects  as  well  as  rulers  from  all  religious  obligations. 
We  should  then  have  only  the  accident  of  power 
as  the  basis  of  human  laws,  and  any  one  might 


THE   HIGHER   LAW. 

disregard  them  without  incurring  guilt.  There 
would  be  no  fear  of  God  to  restrain  —  no  hope  of 
heaven  to  reward.  All  motives  to  obedience  would 
be  cut  off,  except  those  which  flow  from  temporal 
considerations. 

But  civil  government  has  its  origin  in  the  Divine 
law,  not  barely  from  a  simple  decree  to  that  effect. 
The  institution  rests  upon  much  more  than  a  statu 
tory  basis.  It  has  the  relation  of  an  effect  to  its 
cause.  If  we  take  away  from  human  laws  the 
support  which  they  derive  from  religion,  their  sta 
bility  and  usefulness  are  at  an  end  :  the  foundation 
is  sapped,  and  the  social  fabric  precipitated  into 
ruin. 

"As  the  religion  of  an  oath  is  a  necessary  vinculum  of 
civil  society;  so  obligation  in  conscience,  respecting  the 
Deity  as  its  original,  and  as  the  punisher  of  the  violation 
thereof,  is  the  very  foundation  of  all  civil  sovereignty  ;  for 
pacts  and  covenants,  (into  which  some  would  resolve  all 
civil  power,)  without  this  obligation  in  conscience,  are  nothing 
but  mere  words  and  breath;  and  the  laws  and  commands  of 
civil  sovereigns  do  not  make  obligation,  but  pre-suppose  it, 
as  a  thing  in  order  of  nature  before  them,  and  without 
which  they  would  be  invalid."  —  Dr.  CUDWORTH,  Intellectual 
System:  vol.  2,  p.  111. 


have  shown  that  no  command  of  man  is 
binding  when  opposed  to  the  law  of  God,  hence  it 
follows  that  the  laws  of  men  are  utterly  incapable 
of  releasing  us  in  any  measure  from  the  claims  of 
the  higher  law.  How  much  stronger  is  the  argu- 


LIMITATIONS    OF    CIVIL    GOVERNMENT.  53 

merit,  then,  when  we  add  to  this  the  fact,  that  human 
government  is  itself  subject  in  all  things  to  this 
very  law  !  How  can  it  release  others,  when  it  can 
not  even  release  itself? 

2.  But  this  is  further  evident  from  the  condition 
of  all  legislators  and  rulers.  Men  never  lose  their 
individuality.  Though  in  authority,  they  are  still 
but  men,  and  act  as  men.  It  is  not  as  legislators 
or  governors  only  that  they  are  known  to  God. 
There  are  no  mere  officers.  The  functions  of  gov 
ernment  are  joined  to  the  other  responsibilities  of 
individual  and  personal  character.  They  are  duties 
which  men  perform  as  individuals,  and  for  which 
they  are  held  responsible,  precisely  as  they  are  for 
other  duties.  It  is  said  that  "  kings  can  do  no 
wrong,"  but  God  does  not  say  it,  neither  will  he 
judge  them  as  kings,  but  as  men.  The  acts  of  a 
government  are  acts  of  individuals — of  individual 
men,  whose  accountability  is  in  no  respect  changed 
by  their  official  character.  The  delusion,  therefore, 
that  civil  duties  carry  with  them  exemption  from 
religious  obligations,  is  most  unfounded.  There  is 
no  reason  why  office  or  power  of  this  kind  should 
have  any  effect,  that  will  not  apply  just  as  well  to 
any  other  office  or  power.  The  president  and  di 
rectors  of  a  bank,  or  of  a  manufacturing  company, 
might,  with  equal  propriety,  attempt  to  set  aside  the 
Divine  law.  We  admit  that  civil  government  is, 
in  some  respects,  more  important  than  the  institu 
tions  just  named ;  but  this  only  enhances  the  obli- 


54  THE   HIGHER   LAW. 

gation  of  those  who  administer  it,  towards  Him  "  by 
whom  kings  rule  and  princes  decree  justice." 

3.  Another  truth  of  great  weight  on  this  subject 
is,  that  civil  officers,  even  the  highest  of  them,  are 
the  servants  of  the  people.  This  is  a  doctrine  rec 
ognized,  not  only  in  our  own  country,  but  where- 
ever  civil  liberty  is  known.  With  the  people  is 
sovereignty,  so  far  as  it  may  rightfully  be  anywhere 
among  men ;  and  their  rulers  are  their  servants. 
These  govermental  servants  are  employed  as  the 
police  of  the  body  politic.  Their  services  are  de 
manded,  on  the  same  principle  that  we  employ  the 
services  of  other  men — that  is,  because  they  are 
beneficial.  The  physician,  the  lawyer,  or  the  me 
chanic,  is  not  more  a  servant  of  the  public,  nor  a 
servant  of  the  public  for  any  other  reason  than  the 
legislator  or  the  governor.  The  idea  .that  these 
servants  of  the  people  have  power  to  cancel  the 
law  of  God,  is  exceedingly  ridiculous.  Had  not 
kings,  and  others  entrusted  with  the  duties  of  gov 
ernment,  entered  into  a  conspiracy  against  the  rights 
of  mankind,  so  great  an  absurdity  wrould  either 
never  have  been  known,  or  been  known  only  as  an 
odious  usurpation. 

If  rulers  have  any  power  to  release  us  from  the 
Divine  law,  they  have  it  from  those  who  employ 
them  —  that  is,  the  governed  give  their  governors 
authority  to  cancel  such  obligations.  The  act  of 
release  is,  then,  not  the  act  of  governors,  but  of  the 
people  whom  they  govern.  It  cannot  be  otherwise, 


LIMITATIONS    OF    CIVIL    GOVEKNMENT.  55 

for  "governments  derive  their  just  powers  from  the 
consent  of  the  governed,"  and  if  the  people  are 
released  from  the  higher  law,  they  are  self-released. 
It  is  their  own  act,  and  they  alone  are  responsible. 

4.  It  gives  to  man  a  power  which,  as  we  have 
shown,  God  does  not  possess.     God  cannot  enact  an 
unrighteous  law ;  he  cannot,  therefore,  require  obe 
dience  to  such  a  law.     In  other  words,  he  cannot 
release  his  creatures  from  the  obligation  of  justice, 
and  at  the  same  time  exercise  government  over 
them.     But  if  human  legislation  is  supreme,  justice 
may  be  set  aside,  and  man  may  be  compelled  to 
obey  an  unjust  law.      And  if  justice  may  be  set 
aside  in  one  instance,  it  may  in  many — in  all  in 
stances.     Thus,  on  this  hypothesis,  justice  might  be 
banished  from  the  world,  and  that,  too,  by  the  author 
ity  of  God.     Most,  it  is  true,  who  claim  uncon 
ditional  supremacy  for  civil  law,  are  atheists ;  but 
men  professing  religion  have  asserted  this  horrid 
doctrine,  and  quoted  scripture  to  justify  it.     Surely, 
they  could  not  have  seen  ite  consequences,  or  they 
would  never  have  given  it  countenance. 

5.  A  government  having  power  to  dispense  with 
the  eternal  principles  of  justice,  established  by  the 
Creator,  and  wrought  into  the  human  constitution, 
would  be  the  most  terrific  engine  of  oppression  that 
can  be   conceived.      Satanic  malice   could  invent 
nothing  worse.     It  would  be  a  mockery  of  God — • 
undoing  at  will  all  he  has  done,  and  trampling  with 
impunity  upon  the  moral  sense  of  all  his  creatures. 


56  THE    HIGHER   LAW. 

Such  a  fearful  power' — such  a  diabolical  institution, 
we  may  be  certain  has  no  existence,  save  among 
the  traitorous  imaginings  of  willful  tyrants  and 
their  obsequious  dupes. 

6.  The  doctrine  of  a  future  judgment,  or  of  any 
judgment  whatever,  on  the  part  of  God,  is  rendered 
impossible.  If  men  are  under  no  higher  obliga 
tions  than  to  human  government,  they  of  course 
have  nothing  to  fear  beyond  this  life,  and  nothing 
in  this  life,  except  the  civil  law.  It  matters  not 
wrhat  we  call  this  monstrous  perversion ;  it  may 
bear  the  outward  stamp  of  atheism  or  of  deism  or 
of  Christianity,  but  it  is  essentially  anti-Christian, 
and  worthy  only  of  our  deepest  abhorrence. 


SECTION  IV. 

CIVIL    GOVERNMENT    CANNOT   CHANGE    THE    NATURE    OF 
VICE    AND    VIRTUE . 

THERE  is  an  immutable  distinction  between  right 
and  wrong,  which  no  human  power  can  subvert. 
This  fixed  character  of  virtue,  and  its  opposite,  is  one 
of  the  most  effectual  barriers  to  the  progress  of  tyr 
anny.  Could  the  wicked  who  bear  rule,  by  any 
means  change  the  nature  of  things,  then  their  decre 
tals,  however  inimical  to  man  or  his  Maker,  might 
put  on  the  garb  of  virtue,  and  challenge  the  respect 


LIMITATIONS   OF   CIVIL    GOVERNMENT.  57 

of  mankind.  But  no  such  deception  is  possible. 
Yice  must  appear  as  vice  ;  it  must  act  on  the  world 
as  vice,  and  as  vice  be  detested  and  spurned  by  all 
the  human  race.  The  heart  of  man  can  form  no  al 
liance  with  it  —  none,  at  least,  till  conscience  has 
ceased  to  perform  its  functions — nor  can  even  the 
intellectual  powers  be  made  to  approve  it.  Un 
schooled  and  unprompted,  we  instantly  repel  it  in 
its  grosser  kinds,  as  the  baleful  destroyer  of  our  hap 
piness.  Pope's  well  known  lines  are  to  the  point : 

"  Yice  is  a  monster  of  such  hateful  mien, 
That  to  be  hated,  needs  but  to  be  seen." 

The  same  is  true  of  virtue.  It  is  an  essential  and 
indestructible  principle.  We  approve  it  intuitively, 
and  covet  it  as  our  best  good.  The  very  hatred  of 
vice  implies  an  opposite,  which  we  love.  Virtue  is 
so  interwoven  with  our  nature,  and  so  congenial  to 
its  interests,  that  it  is  approved  by  those  who  do 
not  practice  it. 

The  impotence  of  human  power,  when  directed 
against  virtue  itself,  is  well  expressed  by  Dr.  Brown  : 

"  A  sovereign,  it  has  been  truly  said,  may  enact  and  re 
scind  laws,  but  he  cannot  create  or  annihilate  a  single  vir 
tue.  It  might  be  amusing  to  consider,  not  one  sovereign 
only,  but  all  the  sovereigns  of  the  different  nations  of  the 
earth,  endeavoring  to  change  a  virtue  into  a  vice  —  a  vice 
into  a  virtue.  If  an  imperial  enactment  of  a  senate  of  kings 
were  to  declare,  that  it  was  in  future  to  be  a  crime  for  a 
mother  to  love  her  child — for  a  child  to  venerate  his  pa 
rent —  if  high  privileges  were  to  be  attached  to  the  most  un 
grateful,  and  an  act  of  gratitude  to  a  benefactor  declared  to 


58  THE   HIGHER   LAW. 

be  a  capital  offence — would  the  heart  of  man  obey  this 
impotent  legislation  ?  Would  remorse  and  self  approbation 
vary  with  the  command  of  man,  or  of  any  number  of  men  ? 
And  would  he,  who,  notwithstanding  these  laws,  had  obsti 
nately  persisted  in  the  illegality  of  loving  his  parent,  or  his 
benefactor,  tremble  to  meet  his  own  conscience  with  the 
horror  which  the  parricide  feels  ?  There  is,  indeed,  a  power 
by  which  'princes  decree  justice;'  but  it  is  a  power  above 
the  mere  voice  of  kings  —  a  power  which  has  previously 
fixed  in  the  breasts  of  those  who  receive  the  decree,  a  love 
of  the  very  virtue  which  kings,  even  when  kings  are  most 
virtuous,  can  only  enforce.  And  it  is  well  for  man,  that  the 
feeble  authorities  of  this  earth  cannot  change  the  sentiments 
of  our  hearts  with  the  same  facility  as  they  can  throw  fetters 
on  our  hands.  There  would  then,  indeed,  be  no  hope  to 
the  oppressed.  The  greater  the  oppression,  the  stronger 
motive  would  there  be  to  make  obedience  to  oppression  a 
virtue,  and  every  species  of  guilt,  which  the  powerful  might 
love  to  exercise,  amiable  in  the  eyes  of  the  miserable  vic 
tims.  All  virtue,  in  such  circumstances,  would  soon  per 
ish  from  the  earth.  A  single  tyrant  would  be  sufficient  to 
destroy,  what  all  the  tyrants  that  have  ever  disgraced  this 
moral  scene,  have  been  incapable  of  extinguishing  —  the  re 
morse  which  was  felt  in  the  bosom  of  him  who  could  order 
every  thing  but  vice  and  virtue  —  and  the  scorn,  and  the 
sorrow,  and  the  wrath,  of  every  noble  heart,  in  the  contem 
plation  of  his  guilty  power. 

"  Nature  has  not  thrown  us  upon  the  world  with  such 
feeble  principles  as  these.  She  has  given  us  virtues  of 
which  no  power  can  deprive  us,  and  has  fixed  in  the  soul 
of  him  whom  more  than  fifty  nations  obey,  a  restraint  on  his 
power,  from  which  the  servile  obedience  of  all  the  nations 
on  the  globe  could  not  absolve  him.  There  may  be  flatter- 


LIMITATIONS    OF   CIVIL    GOVERNMENT.  59 

ers  to  surround  a  tyrant's  throne,  with  knees  ever  ready  to 
bow  on  the  very  blood  with  which  his  steps  are  stained,  and 
with  voices  ever  ready  to  applaud  the  guilt  that  has  been 
already  perpetrated,  and  to  praise,  even  with  a  sort  of  pro 
phetic  quickness  of  discernment,  the  cruelties  in  prospect 
which  they  only  anticipate.  There  may  be  servile  warriors, 
to  whom  it  is  in  different  whether  .they  succor  or  oppress, 
whether  they  enslave  or  free,  if  they  have  only  drowned  in 
blood,  with  sufficient  promptness,  the  thousands  of  human 
beings  whom  they  have  been  commanded  to  sweep  from 
the  earth.  There  may  be  statesmen  as  servile,  to  whom  the 
people  are  nothing,  and  to  whom  every  thing  is  dear,  but 
liberty  and  virtue.  These  eager  emulators  of  each  other's 
baseness,  may  sound  forever  in  the  ears  of  him  on  whose 
vices  their  own  power  depends,  that  what  he  has  willed 
must  be  right,  because  he  has  willed  it — and  priests  still 
more  base,  from  the  very  dignity  of  that  station  which  they 
dishonor,  not  content  with  proclaiming  that  crimes  are  right, 
may  add  their  consecrating  voice,  and  proclaim  that  they 
are  holy,  because  they  are  deeds  of  a  vicegerent  of  that  Ho 
liness  which  is  supreme.  But  the  flatteries,  which  only 
sound  in  the  ear,  or  play,  perhaps,  with  feeble  comfort 
around  the  surface  of  the  heart,  are  unable  to  reach  that 
deeper-seated  sense  of  guilt  within." — Philosophy  of  the 
Human  Mind:  led.  75. 

The  changeless  nature  of  moral  principle,  and  the 
necessity  which  it  throws  upon  legislation,  of  con 
forming  its  character  to  the  moral  law,  are  the  bul 
wark  of  human  rights.  When  government  deviates 
from  the  standard  of  rectitude,  it  produces  ruin,  and 
all  the  forces  of  nature  engage  against  it,  or,  rather , 
for  its  restoration  to  purity.  As  the  result  of  this 


60  THE   HIGHER   LAW. 

conservatism,  which,  nature  always  exerts,  govern 
ment  grows  weaker  as  it  grows  vicious,  until  it  be 
comes  too  vicious  to  be  endured,  and  then  it  is  over 
thrown.  This  is  the  origin  of  most  revolutions. 
That  there  have  been  instances  of  the  exact  re 
verse —  of  good  governments  overthrown  by  national 
degeneracy — .does  not  weaken  the  argument,  but 
strengthens  it,  rather ;  showing  that  the  govern 
mental  institution  must  conform  to  the  moral  con 
dition  of  those  among  whom  it  exists.  It  is  not 
pretended  that  the  moral  principle  is  always  equally 
well  developed  in  communities,  or  that  people  are, 
by  any  means,  incorruptible.  Private  citizens,  as 
well  as  public  functionaries,  nations  as  well  as  indi 
viduals,  may  become  depraved ;  but  this  does  not 
prove  that  virtue  itself  is  corruptible.  It  only 
proves  that  men  may  depart  from  virtue. 

This  immutable  distinction  between  vice  and  vir 
tue  is,  in  fact,  the  only  basis  of  character  and  of  law. 
If  good  and  evil  were  the  same,  or  convertible  into 
each  other,  courts  of  equity  could  not  exist,  nor 
could  there  be  any  foundation  for  rewards  or  pun 
ishments,  since  it  would  make  no  difference  whether 
people  did  right  or  wrong.  All  law  is  of  necessity 
based  upon  this  pre-existing  and  ineradicable  dif 
ference  in  the  nature  of  things,  and  to  subvert  it  is 
as  impossible  as  it  would  be  to  change  the  order  of 
the  universe. 


POWERS   OF   CIVIL   GOVERNMENT.  61 


CHAPTER  Y. 
THE  POWERS  OF  CIVIL  GOVERNMENT. 


As  might  be  expected,  these  powers  are  exactly 
the  opposite  of  the  propositions  contained  in  the 
foregoing  chapter.  They  may  be  stated  thus  : 

1.  Civil  government  can  maintain  the  rights  of 
conscience. 

2.  It  can  maintain  the  other  natural  rights  and 
powers  of  mankind. 

3.  It  can  enforce  obedience  to  the  law  of  God. 

4.  It   can  maintain  the   immutable   distinction 
between  vice  and  virtue. 


SECTION  I. 

CIVIL     GOVERNMENT    CAN     MAINTAIN     THE     RIGHTS    OF 
CONSCIENCE. 

THE  end  of  government  is  conservation — not  the 
conservation  of  itself,  as  too  many  suppose,  but  the 
conservation  of  the  rights  of  the  people  who  live 
4 


62  THE   HIGHER   LAW. 

under  it.  The  happiness  of  mankind  depends  very 
much  upon  their  adherence  to  that  standard  of 
moral  rectitude  which  God  has  established  in  their 
own  consciences,  and  in  his  holy  word.  To  do  right 
is  a  privilege  no  less  than  a  duty.  Man,  being  con 
stituted  as  he  is,  could  not  have  laid  upon  him  a 
heavier  infliction  than  to  be  obliged  to  do  wrong. 
It  would  be  a  perpetual  crucifixion  of  himself,  so 
long  as  any  sense  of  moral  obligation,  or  any  per 
ception  of  the  excellence  of  virtue,  and  the  loath 
someness  of  vice,  remained  to  him.  Ixion,  chained 
to  his  wrheel,  had  a  more  tolerable  fate.  Such  an 
one  might  truly  say,  "  O  wretched  man  that  I 
am !  who  shall  deliver  me  from  the  body  of  this 
death  ?"  To  take  away  all  vice,  and  all  tendency 
to  vice,  and  thereby  bring  in  the  blessings  of  ever 
lasting  righteousness,  were  the  great  objects  of  re 
demption — that  higher  and  most  wonderful  act  of 
the  Divine  government.  Human  laws,  at  best,  fall 
very  far  short  of  attempting  complete  moral  excel 
lence.  For  the  fullness  of  virtue  we  must  depend 
on  God — on  the  higher  law — while  to  man,  as  a 
co-worker,  is  left  the  regulation  and  guardianship 
of  character,  in  a  few  subordinate  particulars.  We 
may  derive  comfort  from  the  fires  kindled  in  our 
dwellings,  but  it  is  not  possible  for  artificial  fires 
to  supply  the  place  of  the  sun  :  they  are  convenient 
and  useful,  but  altogether  incapable  of  meeting  the 
wants  of  physical  existence.  So  government  may 
do  something  towards  conserving  the  morals  of  the 


POWERS    OF   CIVIL    GOVERNMENT.  63 

world,  but  our  main  dependence  must  be  upon  a 
higher  power. 

In  protecting  the  exercise  of  conscience,  civil 
government  is  co-operative  with  the  higher  law. 
And  this  is  its  province  always.  It  may  contribute 
to  the  assistance  and  perfection  of  natural  endow 
ments,  but  not  to  their  destruction  or  perversion. 
Like  the  daily  labor  of  man,  by  which,  he  aids  the 
productiveness  of  nature,  and  thereby  gains  a  bet 
ter  subsistence,  government  enhances — if  it  be  not- 
misdirected —  that  good  order  in  society  which  na 
ture  designed,  but  which,  owing  to  human  depravity, 
is  too  little  prevalent,  without  the  aid  of  civil  au 
thority.  The  law  not  only  prohibits  all  injury  of 
the  moral  faculty,  but  stimulates  its  activity,  by 
exacting  the  fulfillment  of  equitable  obligations. 
If  men  do  not  pay  honest  debts,  provision  is  made 
for  the  forcible  seizure  and  sale  of  enough  of  their 
effects  to  liquidate  the  demand,  and  satisfy  the 
claims  of  justice. 


SECTION  II. 

CIVIL  GOVERNMENT  CAN  MAINTAIN  THE  NATURAL  RIGHTS 
AND  POWERS  OF  MANKIND. 

WE  might  have  included,  without  impropriety, 
under  this  head,  what  we  have  advanced  in  the  fore- 


64:  THE   HIGHER   LAW. 

going  section,  as  conscience  is  unquestionably  one 
of  our  natural  powers,  and  the  right  to  use  it,  one 
of  our  natural  rights.  But  the  transcendent  import 
ance  of  the  moral  faculty,  in  all  discussions  of  this 
nature,  renders  it  desirable  to  give  greater  promi 
nence  to  its  claims,  than  could  be  done  in  a  hasty 
sketch,  where  many  particulars  were  grouped  to 
gether.  Conscience  is  not  only  a  natural  power,  the 
exercise  of  which  is  guarantied  to  us  by  the  same 
principle  that  ensures  us  the  use  of  our  hands  and 
feet,  our  eyes  and  ears,  but  it  is  a  part  of  man,  vastly 
higher  in  its  character — so  much  higher,  that  with 
out  it,  right  and  wrong  could  not  be  affirmed  of  man : 
he  would  have  no  moral  character  whatever — he 
would  not  be  man.  While  civil  government  is 
charged  with  guarding  this  fountain  of  good  and 
evil,  it  is  also  charged  with  preserving  all  the  vari 
ous  subordinate  natural  rights  of  men.  These  1  need 
not  name  in  detail.  They  include  everything  be 
stowed  by  Creative  goodness  :  the  right  to  be,  to  be 
human  beings,  to  provide  for  all  our  wants,  to  use 
and  enjoy  all  our  faculties  and  powers;  and  if  there 
be  any  other  conceivable  right,  imparted  by  the  Cre 
ator,  which  may  come  within  the  province  of  human 
guardianship,  it  is  provided  for  and  conserved  by 
the  civil  law. 

For  the  maintenance  of  these  rights,  government 
was  instituted.  It  has  no  other  purpose  with  regard 
to  them.  Destroy  them  it  certainly  cannot,  without 
the  most  willful  and  wicked  perversion  of  its  nature. 


POWERS    OF   CIVIL    GOVERNMENT.  65 

As  there  is  strength  in  union,  by  the  coalition  of 
men  for  the  common  defence,  a  power  is  brought 
into  existence  for  securing  public  order  and  indi 
vidual  rights,  which  must  otherwise  have  remained 
unknown.  One  man,  however  wise  or  powerful, 
cannot  protect  himself  against  all  other  men ;  he 
might  be  injured  or  destroyed,  in  ways  too  numer 
ous  to  mention,  if  compelled  to  be  his  own  protector. 
But  by  entering  into  the  general  confederacy  for 
maintaining  the  rights  of  man,  he  gains  protection 
with  very  little  trouble.  Just  as  a  man  can  cross  a 
bridge  by  paying  a  trifling  toll,  whereas  he  would 
be  wholly  unable  to  build  a  bridge  for  his  own  ac 
commodation.  So  with  public  roads,  and  almost 
all  other  things  of  a  public  nature — all  professions, 
trades,  and  business  pursuits,  except  so  far  as  they 
minister  directly  to  the  personal  wants  of  those  who 
pursue  them,  are  based  upon  the  same  principle. 
They  are  possible,  because  many  share  in  them,  and 
are  benefited  by  them.  Physicians,  lawyers,  and 
mechanics  are  sustained  by  the  many — that  is,  by 
the  public.  'No  individual  would  be  able  to  meet 
the  expense  of  such  assistance,  if  he  must  purchase 
the  entire  of  a  professional  man's  services,  in  order 
to  have  his  services  at  all.  But  as  many  are  in  like 
circumstances  with  himself,  their  common  want  ren 
ders  it  possible,  by  a  division  of  his  labors,  for  each 
one  to  have  all  he  needs,  and  at  a  moderate  expense. 
Thus  is  it  with  government.  If  the  task  of  self-pro 
tection  was  thrown  upon  each  one,  apart  from  this 


66  THE   HIGHER   LAW. 

arrangement,  it  would  be  wholly  impossible,  because 
one  man  has  not  the  strength  of  a  hundred,  or  a  thou 
sand,  or  a  million.  In  the  confederacy — that  is, 
under  civil  government — he,  in  effect,  increases  his 
own  powers  indefinitely ;  and  it  is  the  only  way  he 
can  increase  them,  except  by  science.  Knowledge 
is  power,  but  it  is  not  in  all  cases  equivalent  to  the 
power  of  coalition. 

This  tremendous  engine — public  authority — be 
ing  instituted  solely  for  the  good  of  society,  should 
be  employed  for  no  other  purpose  than  to  keep  the 
rights  and  immunities  of  such  society  intact.  If 
diverted  from  its  original  design,  and  made  to  ope 
rate,  with  all  its  crushing  power,  in  favor  of  itself, 
or  of  any  particular  member  in  society,  to  the  ex 
clusion  of  others,  nothing  can  do  greater  mischief. 
In  such  case,  either  society,  as  a  whole,  becomes  the 
victim  of  its  own  institution,  or  the  injury  falls  upon 
some  particular  class  of  persons,  who  are  thereby 
stripped  of  their  rights,  and  ruined  by  what  should 
have  been  their  inviolable  protection. 

To  cut  off  from  equal  privileges,  whole  races  of 
men,  under  the  pretext  of  government,  is  robbery, 
perpetrated  in  the  name  of  order — the  rankest  in 
justice,  committed  in  the  name  of  justice.  It  is  in 
politics  as  it  would  be  in  medicine,  if  the  physician 
should  give  fatal  poisons  where  he  ought  to  give  on 
ly  salutary  remedies.  The  higher  law  of  nature, 
and  of  nature's  God,  on  which  the  civil  law  is  found 
ed,  has  made  the  essential  rights  of  men  inalienable ; 


POWERS    OF   CIVIL   GOVERNMENT.  67 

and  though  they  may  be  obstructed,  they  can  never 
be  destroyed,  f  So  far  as  conscience  is  concerned,  the 
unjust  law  is,  in  fact,  no  law,  and  should  be  treated 
as  a  nullity,  because  it  is  unjust.  But  justice  and 
power  are  not  always  combined,  and  hence  that  may 
pass  as  law,  and  be  enforced  as  law,  which  merits 
only  detestation.  Of  this  character  are  all  govern 
ments  not  strictly  conformed  to  the  law  of  God ;  but 
perversion  has  its  limits,  and  wicked  governments 
can  only  make  impotent  attempts  against  the  con 
stitution  of  things.  They  may  strip  a  man  of  his 
rights  by  an  unrighteous  decree,  but  their  decree  is 
null  and  void  before  G-od.  The  higher  law — the 
law  of  the  universe — the  law  of  the  uncreated  God — 
shall  stand,  in  spite  of  any  adverse  legislation  on  the 
part  of  his  creatures.  What  that  law  gives  belongs 
to  those  to  whom  it  is  given,  until  the  law  which 
gave  it  shall  take  it  away.  Man  can  take  away 
property,  but  he  cannot  take  away  rights ;  he  can 
take  away  life,  but  not  the  right  to  life. 


SECTION  ITL 

• 

CIVIL    GOVERNMENT    CAN    ENFORCE    OBEDIENCE   TO   THE 
LAW   OF    GOD. 


have  already  virtually  affirmed  as  much  as  is 
contained  in  this  proposition,  but  to  complete  the 
illustration  of  the  principles  laid  down,  it  is  neces- 


68  THE   HIGHER   LAW. 

sary  to  vary  their  application.  Conscience,  and  all 
other  natural  powers  and  rights  of  humanity,  are,  in 
the  fullest  sense  of  the  term,  laws  of  God.  They 
embody  his  will,  and  constitute  unalterable  condi 
tions  of  being  and  of  happiness.  The  maintenance 
and  enforcement  of  these — the  avowed  object  of  all 
just  government — is  to  enforce  obedience  to  the  Di 
vine  law.  But  these  natural  laws  have  a  special 
interpretation,  which  is  also  to  be  enforced  by  the 
civil  law.  The  Scriptures  establish  government, 
not  merely  for  the  sake  of  conserving  those  few  ob 
vious  rights  which  are  indispensable  to  the  bare  exist 
ence  of  civil  society,  but  for  the  securing,  as  far  as 
may  be,  of  that  moral  excellence  which  is  essential 
to  eternal  life.  That  revelation  has,  at  least,  co-or 
dinate  authority  with  nature,  as  a  foundation  of  civil 
government,  is  very  clearly  stated  by  Blackstone : 

"  Providence,  in  compassion  to  the  frailty,  the  imperfec 
tion,  and  the  blindness  of  human  reason,  hath  been  pleased, 
at  sundry  times  and  in  divers  manners,  to  discover  and  en 
force  its  laws  by  an  immediate  and  direct  levelation.  The 
doctrines  thus  delivered,  we  call  the  revealed  or  Divine  law, 
and  they  are  to  be  found  only  in  the  Holy  Scriptures. 
These  precepts,  when  revealed,  are  found,  upon  comparison, 
to  be  really  a  part  of  the  original  law  of  nature,  as  they  teid, 
in  all  their  consequences,  to  man's  felicity.  But  we  are  not 
thence  to  conclude  that  the  knowledge  of  these  truths  was 
attainable  by  reason,  in  its  present  corrupted  state;  since 
we  find  that,  until  they  were  revealed,  they  were  hid  from 
the  wisdom  of  ages.  As,  then,  the  moral  precepts  of  this 
law  are  indeed  of  the  same  original  with  those  of  the  law  of 


POWERS   OF   CIYIL    GOVEENMENT.  69 

nature,  so  their  intrinsic  obligation  is  of  equal  strength  and 
perpetuity.  Yet,  undoubtedly,  the  revealed  law  has  in 
finitely  more  authenticity  than  that  moral  system  which  is 
framed  by  ethical  writers,  and  denominated  the  natural 
law;  because  one  is  the  law  of  nature,  expressly  declared 
so  to  be  by  God  himself;  the  other  is  only  what,  by  the  as 
sistance  of  human  reason,  we  imagine  to  be  such.  If  we 
could  be  as  certain  of  the  latter  as  we  are  of  the  former, 
both  would  have  an  equal  authority ;  but,  till  then,  they  can 
never  be  put  in  any  competition  together." —  Com.,  Intro. : 
sec.  2. 

The  Bible  says,  "  Thou  shalt  not  kill ;"  and  this 
command,  it  will  not  be  denied,  is  entirely  conso 
nant  with  the  dictates  of  natural  justice  ;  we,  there 
fore,  in  prohibiting  murder,  are  compelling  obedi 
ence  to  the  Bible  ;  and  that,  too,  in  accordance  with 
the  most  enlightened  principles  of  legislation.  It  is 
not  pretended  that  all  the  duties  enjoined  by  the 
law  of  God  come  within  the  cognizance  of  civil  law. 
Both  nature  and  revelation  teach  many  things  that 
cannot  be  made  the  subject  of  legislation,  because 
men  have  not  the  wisdom  necessary  to  make  or  ad 
minister  laws  in  relation  to  these  duties.  Nor  are 
such  laws  absolutely  essential  to  the  existence  of 
civil  society,  the  maintenance  of  which  is  the  great 
object  of  human  government. 

Another  reason  for  this  limitation  of  political  au 
thority  is,  that  the  government  of  God  depends  not 
altogether  upon  man  for  the  execution  of  its  laws. 
Offences  against  nature  are  always  partly  punished 
4* 


70  THE   HIGHEK   LAW. 

by  nature,  and  where  such  offences  are  not  against 
society,  the  laws  of  society  have  nothing  to  do  with 
them,  and  their  correction  should  be  left  entirely  to 
nature.  It  is  the  province  of  the  higher  law  to  en 
force  its  own  sanctions,  whether  of  punishment  or 
reward,  but  it  may  employ,  for  this  purpose,  within 
certain  limits,  or,  in  other  words,  as  far  as  the  good 
order  of  society  demands,  the  subordinate  agency  of 
human  government. 

But  the  power  of  civil  law,  to  enforce  the  require 
ments  of  the  Divine  law,  rests  chiefly  on  its  relation 
to  the  latter.  The  Divine  law  is  supreme,  and  it  is 
not  possible  that  a  subordinate  law,  or  the  law  of  a 
subordinate  power,  should  be  rightfully  at  variance 
with  that  which  is  above  it.  Hence,  in  this  confed 
eracy,  the  laws  of  a  state  are  considered  null  when 
they  are  not  conformed  to  the  constitution  of  the 
United  States,  and,  in  like  manner,  all  enactments 
of  Congress  and  of  state  legislatures,  are  void,  if  not 
in  accordance  with  the  constitutions  to  which  these 
legislative  bodies  severally  owe  their  existence.  In 
every  thing  requisite,  the  lower  law  is  bound  to  sus 
tain  the  higher — 'the  authority  derived,  that  from 
which  it  is  derived.  This  must  be  especially  true 
in  the  case  before  us,  because  the  higher  law  com 
mands  all  right,  and  prohibits  all  wrong ;  so  that  the 
law  of  man,  unless  perverted,  is,  of  necessity  pro- 
motive  of  the  Divine  law. 


POWERS   OF   CIVIL    GOVERNMENT.  71 


SECTION  IV. 

CIVIL   GOVERNMENT   CAN   MAINTAIN   THE   IMMUTABLE 
DISTINCTION   BETWEEN   VICE   AND   VIRTUE. 

THE  distinction  between  vice  and  virtue  is  so  fixed 
and  immutable,  that  it  can  neither  be  created  nor 
destroyed  by  human  authority ;  but  still,  a  power 
which  can  neither  create  nor  destroy,  may  subserve 
other  purposes,  equally  important  to  the  social  sys 
tem.  The  lexicographer  does  not  originate  words, 
or  their  meanings,  and  yet  his  labors  are  useful.  By 
collecting  words  and  their  meanings,  as  they  exist, 
he  becomes  a  convenient,  though  not  an  infallible 
exponent  of  the  language.  So  the  civil  code  may 
be  allowed  to  represent  justice,  as  established  by  the 
Creator.  But  with  the  legislator,  as  with  the  lexi 
cographer,  there  is  no  infallibility  ;  either  may  err, 
and  erring,  may  pervert  the  truth,  instead  of  main 
taining  it. ]  Nor  is  there  any  security  against  evils 
of  this  kind,  except  the  strength  of  those  inherent 
principles,  which  are  outraged  by  such  infractions. 
A  bad  law  will  be  nearly  or  quite  inoperative  among 
a  good  people,  for  the  same  reason  that  a  blunder 
ing,  imperfect  book  is  contemned  by  the  intelli 
gent  — namely,  deficiency  of  character.  Such  a  law, 
not  having  the  qualities  demanded  by  an  upright 
people,  would  be  instinctively  rejected  as  a  nui 
sance.  It  would  not  promote  the  object  of  legislar 


72  THE   HIGHER  LAW. 

tion,  and  could  not  be  endured  without  great  afflic 
tion.  Law  is  acceptable  among  the  virtuous,  just 
in  proportion  to  its  goodness — that  is,  just  in  pro 
portion  as  it  is  adapted  to  promote  virtue  and  sup 
press  vice.  It  has  ever  been  the  professed  object  of 
legislation  to  attain  this  end,  and  all  nations,  of 
every  age,  have  attempted  to  fix  their  civil  regula 
tions  upon  what  to  them  appeared  to  be  the  dictates 
of  justice.  The  following  description  of  law,  which 
Mr.  Chitty  pronounces  the  "  most  perfect  that  can 
either  be  found  or  conceived,"  was  given  by  De 
mosthenes,  and  show^s  conclusively,  what  were  the 
views  of  mankind  in  the  earliest  ages  : 

"  The  design  and  object  of  laws  is,  to  ascertain  what  is 
just,  honorable,  and  expedient;  and  when  that  is  discovered, 
it  is  proclaimed  as  a  general  ordinance,  equal  and  impartial 
to  all.  This  is  the  origin  of  law,  which,  for  various  reasons, 
all  are  under  obligation  to  obey,  but  especially  because  all 
law  is  the  invention  and  gift  of  heaven,  the  sentiment  of 
wise  men,  the  correction  of  every  offence,  and  the  general 
compact  of  the  state ;  to  live  in  conformity  with  which  is 
the  duty  of  every  individual  in  society." — Oral.  1,  cont. 
Aristogit. 

The  fact  seems  to  be,  that  human  law  is  an  in- 
.  strumentality,  which  the  Great  Lawgiver  uses  to 
further  the  execution  of  his  own  eternal  statutes. 
Many  of  these  statutes  are  so  profound,  that  the  for 
mal  agency  of  man  cannot  be  employed  in  giving 
them  effect;  but  there  are  others  more  palpable, 
and  to  aid  in  the  maintenance  of  such,  civil  law  was 


TOWERS   OF   CIVIL   GOVERNMENT.  73 

instituted.  Hence,  it  is  the  object  of  our  laws  every 
where,  to  condemn  what  the  reason  and  conscience 
of  mankind  condemn,  and  to  uphold  what  reason 
and  conscience  approve.  The  laws  are  only  a  writ 
ten  embodiment  of  the  public  mind  on  the  subject 
of  morals — of  morals  as  they  appertain  to  the  most 
common  and  tangible  rights  of  human  beings.  The 
people — created  to  feel  the  need  of  justice  and  pro 
tection — express,  in  the  form  of  written  laws,  their 
sense  of  these  things,  and  make  the  declaration  of 
principles  a  rule  of  action.  Such  is  civil  law.  In 
nothing  either  more  or  less  than  an  effort  to  promote 
virtue,  and  to  prevent  or  punish  vice,  in  accordance 
with  nature  and  the  word  of  God. 

Government  has  this  power  of  co-operation  in  sup 
port  of  right,  on  the  same  ground  that  man,  and  all 
other  creatures,  have  power  to  live  according  to  the 
constitution  that  God  has  given  them.  And  the 
whole  design  of  the  institution  is  to  ensure  conform 
ity  to  the  higher  law,  which  he  has  thus  interwoven 
with  their  very  nature,  as  well  as  amplified  and  re 
affirmed  in  his  holy  word.  In  this,  its  true  light, 
civil  government  appears  as  a  divinely  appointed 
means  of  accomplishing  the  good  order  essential  to 
the  happiness  of  society.  It  is  emphatically  a  Di 
vine  institution,  and  when  conducted  as  it  should 
be,  has  the  sanction  of  the  Most  High.  This  agrees 
with  the  explicit  language  of  scripture,  "  Submit 
yourselves  to  every  ordinance  of  man  for  the  Lord's 
sake :  whether  it  be  to  the  king  as  supreme ;  or 


74  THE   HIGHER   LAW. 

unto  governors,  as  unto  those  that  are  sent  by  him 
for  the  punishment  of  evil  doers,  and  for  the  praise 
of  them  that  do  well."  The  duty  of  submission,  is 
here  enforced  with  all  those  qualifications  which 
ever  pertain  to  the  supremacy  of  conscience.  It  is 
only  while  kings  and  governors  rule  as  they  should, 
that  we  are  to  submit  to  them  for  the  Lord's  sake. 
They  have  authority,  and  have  it  from  him,  but  it 
is  only  authority  to  do  right.  He  releases  none  of 
his  creatures  from  their  obligations  to  him,  nor  gives 
any  the  right  to  require  of  them  what  he  would  not. 


OBEDIENCE   TO   CIVIL    GOVERNMENT.  75 


CHAPTER  VI. 
OBEDIENCE  TO  CIYIL  GOYEENMENT. 


FKOM  the  preceding  chapters,  it  will  very  readily 
be  inferred,  that  obedience  to  civil  law  is  a  duty,  in 
all  cases,  when  the  law  is  what  it  should  be.  A 
right  law,  though  made  by  man,  is,  to  all  intents 
and  purposes,  a  law  of  God ;'  because  it  is  sanc 
tioned  by  him,  and  may  even  be  said  to  have  been 
made  at  his  command.  But  it  must  be  kept  in 
mind,  that  the  duty  of  obedience  depends  entirely 
on  the  character  of  the  law.  God,  who  is  the  foun 
tain  of  all  legislative  power,  gives  no  authority  to 
make  a  bad  law — -that  is  to  say,  he  gives  no  author 
ity  to  subvert  his  own  laws,  which  are  all  good.  If 
bad  laws  were  obligatory,  then  the  Divine  law 
might  be  nullified  by  wicked  men,  whenever  they 
chose,  and  society,  released  from  all  obligation  to 
heaven,  would  be  under  the  necessity  of  plunging 
into  the  depths  of  wickedness,  at  the  bidding  of 
government.  Whether  or  not  the  Most  High  has, 
in  this  way,  left  the  claims  of  his  own  law  contin 
gent,  is  a  question  too  plain  for  argument.  It  sup 
poses  that  the  inferior  authority  can  annihilate  the 


76  THE   HIGHER   LAW. 

superior :  or,  in  other  words,  that  the  decree  of 
man  can  set  aside  the  decree  of  God.  Such  a 
result  would  be  the  reverse  of  all  established  ideas 
among  men,  and  contrary  to  all  known  possibilities 
in  the  nature  of  things.  The  supremacy  of  God 
is  not  conditional,  but  unconditional ;  and  the  su 
premacy  of  his  law  is  not  mutable,  but  immutable. 
And  yet,  on  an  imagined  necessity  of  conforming 
to  the  requirements  of  human  law,  whether  right  or 
wrong,  has  been  based  every  tyrannical  government 
that  has  cursed  the  world.  Perceiving  that  they 
had  a  right  to  do  some  things,  rulers  and  law-ma 
kers  have  presumed  to  do  whatever  they  pleased ; 
and  had  the  extreme  audacity  to  claim  Divine  author 
ity  for  all  their  enormous  wickedness,  as  well  as  for 
their  most  innocent  and  useful  acts.  They  have 
forgotten  that  lawT-makers  are  always  under  law  to 
God,  and  that  law  itself  must  be  lawful,  in  order  to 
have  authority. 

It  is  wrell  known  that  in  all  human  legislation, 
whenever  there  is  a  conflict  in  the  laws,  the  higher 
authority  controls  the  lower.  The  law  of  a  single 
state  never  sets  aside  a  law  of  the  confederacy  to 
which  that  state  belongs ;  nor  can  a  legislative 
enactment  subvert  the  constitution,  from  which 
such  legislature  derives  its  power.  Hence,  all  anal 
ogy,  and  all  history,  as  well  as  all  reason,  are 
against  this  absurd  pretension  of  wicked  men,  who 
claim  for  human  laws  that  infallibility  and  suprem 
acy  which  belong  only  to  Almighty  God. 


OBEDIENCE   TO    CIVIL   GOVERNMENT.  77 

Notwithstanding  no  reason  can  be  given  for  this 
foolish  and  barefaced  usurpation  of  authority,  most 
governments  continue  to  maintain  it.  It  is  true, 
there  are  moments  of  relaxation,  in  which  a  sort 
of  political  toleration  prevails,  but  ever  and  anon 
this  old  intolerance  springs  up  —  showing  that  its 
temporary  suspension  was  accidental,  and  that  the 
essential  principles  of  human  freedom  are  not  yet 
well  understood,  except  by  a  very  few.  Whenever 
occasion  offers,  almost  every  government  is  ready 
to  insist  upon  the  fullest  obedience,  without  any 
reference  to  principles  of  rectitude.  The  perform 
ance  of  some  contract,  or  the  carrying  out  of  a 
compromise,  or  the  maintenance  of  some  ancient 
usage,  is  considered  a  valid  reason  for  enforcing 
law  to  the  uttermost.  It  may  be,  that  the  object 
proposed  by  the  law,  ranks  among  the  darkest  of 
crimes,  yet  this,  according  to  the  theory  under  con 
sideration,  does  not  absolve  the  subject :  the  state 
must  judge  for  him  in  matters  of  morality,  and  his 
conscience  must  be  committed  to  public  keeping. 
This  at  once  destroys  all  individual  responsibility, 
and  makes  the  state,  or  its  officers,  answerable  for 
the  guilt  of  obedience  to  wicked  laws.  But  Chris 
tians,  well  knowing  that  such  an  excuse  could  never 
avail  them,  have  uniformly  contemned  the  laws  of 
men,  whenever  such  laws  could  not  be  kept  with 
out  violating  the  law  of  God.  Here  has  been  the 
battle  ground  of  the  saints  in  all  ages.  The  several 
persecutions  through  which  the  church  has  passed, 


78  THE    HIGHER   LAW. 

have  all  taken  their  rise  at  this  point.  The  author 
ity  of  heaven  and  earth,  having  come  into  conflict, 
believers  have  had  to  "  choose  whom  they  would 
serve."  ~No  one  in  the  least  acquainted  with  the 
Bible,  or  with  church  history,  will  need  any  con 
firmation  of  this  statement.  We  may,  however, 
refer  to  one  instance,  in  which  the  conflict  of  author 
ity  was  so  direct  as  to  admit  of  no  possible  mistake, 
and  the  approval  of  the  act  of  disobedience  so  im 
mediately  manifest,  as  to  leave  no  doubt.  The  three 
worthies  who  were  cast  into  the  fire  by  the  king  of 
Babylon,  had  every  assurance  of  the  will  of  their 
earthly  sovereign,  and  that  will  was  to  them  the 
highest  of  human  laws,  yet,  because  of  its  palpable 
contrariety  to  the  will  of  God,  they  deliberately 
and  repeatedly  disobeyed  it.  Other  instances,  of  a 
similar  kind,  are  frequent  in  both  the  Old  and  JSTew 
Testaments.  But  in  the  vast  majority  of  instances, 
where  believers  have  been  called  to  suffer  for  obey 
ing  God  rather  than  man,  their  recompense  has 
been  defered  to  "the  resurrection  of  the  just."  ~No 
miraculous  deliverance  awaited  them,  nor  did  they 
expect  any ;  they  were  contented  to  leave  the  time, 
and  the  measure  of  their  reward,  to  Him  who  had 
called  them  "  to  glory  and  virtue." 

It  is  evident,  that  religion  could  not  exist  on  the 
earth,  if  God  had  given  to  man  such  authority  as 
our  politicians  claim.  For  a  law  might  at  any  time 
be  made,  prohibiting  the  worship  of  Jehovah,  and 
abolishing  any  or  all  other  of  his  laws.  Such  pre- 


OBEDIENCE   TO    CIVIL   GOVERNMENT.  79 

tensions  are  therefore  openly  hostile  to  Christianity. 
Religion  cannot  co-exist  with  them,  nor  they  with  it. 
But,  before  leaving  this  part  of  our  subject,  it 
may  be  well  to  notice  yet  further,  on  whom  rests 
the  responsibility  of  deciding  the  question  of  obe 
dience.  It  is  the  individual,  ever.  Each  human 
being  must  decide  for  himself.  God  deals  with  men 
simply ;  he  knows  nothing  of  transferred  obligations, 
or  of  corporate  responsibilities.  Dr.  Paley,  though 
generally  too  much  inclined  to  the  doctrine  of  expe 
diency,  on  moral  and  political  questions,  is  very 
explicit  here.  Speaking  of  the  duty  of  resistance, 
he  says : 

"But  who  shall  judge  this?  We  answer,  every  man  for 
Limself.  In  contentions  between  the  sovereign  and  the 
subject,  the  parties  acknowledge  no  common  arbitrator; 
and  it  would  be  absurd  to  refer  the  decision  to  those  whose 
conduct  has  provoked  the  question,  and  whose  own  interest, 
authority,  and  fate,  are  immediately  concerned  in  it. — Mor. 
and  Pol.  Phil :  book  5,  ch.  3. 

Indeed,  without  this  right,  no  man  could  main 
tain  even  his  own  life,  or  his  rationality,  to  say 
nothing  of  his  virtue.  For  the  civil  law  might 
command  him  to  kill  himself,  or  to  destroy  his  men 
tal  faculties,  and  his  advisers  might  concur  with 
the  law  in  this  abominable  requisition :  so  that  if 
the  decision  was  made  dependent  upon  any  other 
than  the  individual  himself,  there  would  be  no 
security. 


80  THE    HIGHER   LAW. 


CHAPTER  VII. 
IMPROVEMENTS  IN  CIVIL  GOVERNMENT. 


To  all  wlio  survey  the  history  of  mankind,  it  must 
appear  remarkable  that  governmental  reforms  have 
so  seldom  been  conducted  in  a  peaceful  and  happy 
manner.  They  have  generally  been  occasions  not 
only  of  violence  and  bloodshed,  but  of  every  sort  of 
injustice  and  extravagance.  Rulers  have  contended 
for  the  full  measure  of  power,  with  which  custom 
or  accident  had  invested  them ;  and  the  people,  as 
if  doomed  to  perpetual  vassalage,  have  struggled 
through  disastrous  wars,  to  achieve  a  modicum  of 
liberty. 

This  unhappy  state  of  things  is  as  needless  as  it 
is  irrational.  To  amend  a  government,  should  be 
as  easy  as  to  mend  a  road,  or  to  repair  a  piece  of 
machinery.  As  government  originates  with  the 
people,  they  should  assume  its  correction,  whenever 
and  wherever  there  is  the  least  necessity.  Its  cor 
rection  is  their  work,  and  they  should  enter  upon  it 
freely  at  all  times.  To  charge  them  with  insurrec 
tionary  and  seditious  designs,  when  they  only  pro- 


IMPROVEMENTS   IN   CIVIL   GOVERNMENT.  81 

pose  wholsome  changes  in  civil  polity,  is  the  basest 
treachery.  It  was  probably  for  this  reason,  that  in 
most  of  our  state  governments,  the  right  of  the  peo 
ple  peaceably  to  assemble  and  petition  for  a  redress 
of  grievances,  is  especially  recognized  in  the  consti 
tution.  But  the  right  extends  much  farther  than 
that  of  mere  petition.  The  people,  as  proprietors  of 
government,  have  full  power  to  introduce  changes 
without  the  formality  of  petitioning.  And  in  too 
many  instances,  they  have  relied  on  the  efficacy  of 
supplications,  when  they  should  have  resorted  to 
more  certain  measures.  If  rulers  are  servants,  then 
the  case  is  clear.  Servants  may  be  petitioned,  but 
the  more  common  and  more  appropriate  method  is 
to  instruct.  The  cause  of  despotism  lies,  no  doubt, 
in  human  depravity ;  but  its  proximate  cause  is  ig 
norance  and  want  of  concert  among  the  people. 
Hulers  have  no  power  in  themselves,  and  can  do 
nothing,  except  as  they  draw  to  their  aid  those  who 
are  disposed  to  uphold  them.  An  army,  well  paid, 
flattered  with  titles,  and  supplied  with  the  muni 
tions  of  war,  is  the  chief  dependence  of  all  despots. 
And,  united  with  the  other  causes  just  named — that 
is,  with  ignorance  and  distraction  among  the  popu 
lace — this  single  means  has  hitherto  been  found 
sufficient  to  enslave  most  of  the  nations  of  the  earth, 
through  every  period  of  their  history. 

The  remedy  is  easily  suggested.  Let  men  use 
their  reason.  Let  them  act  as  rational  beings,  and 
not  as  "  brute  beasts,  made  to  be"  oppressed — or 


82  THE   HIGHER   LAW. 

"  destroyed,"  if  they  resist  oppression.  Hitherto, 
there  has  been  so  little  concert  in  action,  that  tyrants 
have  found  it  no  difficult  matter  to  enslave  those 
from  whom  they  derived  all  their  power.  By  divi 
ding  the  people,  and  making  them  oppose  each 
other,  they  have  banished  liberty  and  perpetuated 
despotism,  from  age  to  age.  And  governments, 
thus  perverted  have  become  engines  of  oppression 
to  the  very  people  who  gave  them  existence,  and 
who  alone  are  interested  in  their  success.  Such 
a  perversion,  is  both  unnatural  and  unnecessary. 
Civil  government  was  not  designed  as  an  inflic 
tion — 'as  a  judgment :  it  is  not  something  which  the 
people  are  predestinated  to  endure,  however  vicious 
it  may  become ;  but  it  is  a  beneficent  institution,  orig 
inating  in  the  wants  of  society,  and  always  subject 
to  such  modifications  as  will  render  it  in  the  highest 
degree  useful.  The  spirit  of  these  remarks  is  em 
braced  in  that  admirable  extract,  already  quoted, 
from  the  Declaration  of  Independence : 

"  Whenever  any  form  of  government  becomes  destructive 
of  these  ends,  [namely,  'life,  liberty,  and  the  pursuit  of  hap 
piness,']  it  is  the  right  of  the  peoj.le  to  alter  or  abolish  it, 
and  to  institute  a  new  government,  laying  its  foundations 
on  such  principles,  and  organizing  its  powers  in  such  form, 
as  to  them  shall  seem  most  likely  to  effect  their  safety  and 
happiness." 

.  This  doctrine  is  true  to  reason  and  Scripture.  It 
regards  man  not  as  the  victim  and  slave  of  civil 
law,  but  as  its  proprietor  and  conservator,  for  the 


IMPROVEMENTS    IN    CIVIL    GOVERNMENT.  83 

noblest  objects  of  life.  It  regards  government  as 
made  for  man,  and  not  man  for  government.  The 
opposite  view  presents  man  as  doomed  to  servitude, 
for  the  support  of  mere  power.  He  is  a  drudge,  on 
whose  obsequiousness  government  officials  may  fat 
ten,  and  who  can  only  properly  fulfill  his  obligations 
by  submission  in  all  things.  That  is,  he  is  a  being 
made  to  be  governed,  and  made  for  nothing  else. 
Hence,  it  is  of  no  consequence  whether  he  is  well 
or  ill  governed,  since  government  of  any  kind  is 
presumed  to  meet  all  the  demands  of  his  nature. 

Despots  have  assiduously  inculcated  this  abomi 
nable  error,  because  they  well  understood  that  truth 
would  destroy  their  pretensions  and  annihilate  their 
power.  Every  attempt  has  been  made  to  surround 
the  subject  of  government  reform  with  superstitious 
fears,  as  though  it  were  something  too  high  or  too 
sacred  for  the  people  to  manage.  Submission  to  the 
powers  that  be,  without  any  exception,  is  the  bur 
den  of  political  teaching.  The  people  are  made  to 
believe  that  it  is  dangerous  for  them  to  meditate 
improvements  and  alterations  in  matters  so  vastly 
important,  and  so  much  above  them !  Just  as 
though  it  was  not  altogether  the  people's  business 
to  attend  to  these  things.  Who  shall  look  after  the 
rights  of  the  people  —  themselves,  or  those  whom 
they  have  directed,  as  their  servants,  to  discharge 
certain  specified  duties  ?  Is  it  the  duty  of  the  peo 
ple  to  look  after  their  own  interests,  or  is  it  not  ? 
Is  it,  in  short,  a  crime  in  them  to  attend  to  their 


84:  THE   HIGHER   LAW. 

own  affairs  ?  Base  is  that  sophistry,  which  would 
mislead  the  public  on  so  vital  a  point.  Statesmen, 
politicians,  government  officials,  legislators,  and  all 
who  live  by  the  present  order  of  things,  in  such  a 
way  as  to  dread  salutary  changes  in  civil  polity, 
are  conspirators  against  mankind.  They  delude  the 
people,  in  order  to  destroy  them. 

"  Their  interest,  like  a  lion,  lives  on  prey." 

From  all  such  treasonable  sentiments  and  designs, 
we  cannot  too  earnestly  pray  to  be  delivered.  The 
generations  of  men  have  too  long  groaned  under  the 
infamous  deception  practiced  by  civil  despots.  It 
is  time  the  spell  was  broken.  Men  should  know 
that  "resistance  to  tyrants  is  obedience  to  God." 
It  is  not  meddling — it  is  not  impertinence  for  the 
people  to  assume  the  correction  of  political  evils. 
The  work  is  theirs,  and  only  theirs,  because,  under 
God,  they  are  'the  only  fountain  of  civil  authority. 
To  array  against  them  their  own  institution,  is  mer 
ciless  barbarity :  to  make  them  destroy  one  another, 
for  the  ostensible  purpose  of  promoting  their  wel 
fare,  is  worse  than  savage  cruelty.  It  has  been  said, 
that  "  the  world  is  governed  too  much,"  and  if  the 
unprincipled  usurpation  to  which  we  have  just  re 
ferred,  must  be  set  down  as  government,  we  shall 
have  no  difficulty  in  admitting  the  saying  to  be  true. 
Of  good  government,  there  cannot  be  too  much ; 
like  health,  it  can  never  accumulate  to  excess.  But 
of  miserable  perversions,  under  the  name  of  gov 
ernment,  the  world  has  had  enough ;  and  it  is  the 


IMPROVEMENTS    IN   CIVIL    GOVERNMENT.  85 

unquestionable  duty  of  all  good  men  to  use  their 
best  exertions  to  put  down  tyranny,  wherever  it 
mafy  exist,  either  in  church  or  state.  This  is  the 
effect,  and  that  directly,  as  well  as  indirectly,  of  the 
Gospel.  The  preaching  of  the  pure  word  of  God, 
is  necessarily  subversive  of  every  form  of  human 
wickedness.  This  word  binds  men  to  the  higher 
law,  whatever  may  be  the  consequences,  and  who 
ever  may  command  to  the  contrary.  Patriotism 
does  the  same.  It  is  quite  as  patriotic  to  break 
laws  as  to  keep  them,  provided  they  are  not  what 
they  should  be.  We  may  go  even  further,  and  af 
firm  that  patriotism  absolutely  demands  resistance 
to  bad  laws.  Such  is  the  view  taken  of  this  impor 
tant  question,  by  Dr.  Paley — an  author  who  never 
leans  to  the  side  of  ultraism : 

"It  may  be  as  much  a  duty,  at  one  time,  to  resist  gov 
ernment,  as  it  is,  at  another,  to  obey  it:  to  wit,  whenever 
more  advantage  will,  in  our  opinion,  accrue  from  resistance, 
than  mischief." — Philos.:  book  6,  ch.  3. 

We  have  little  disposition  to  enter  upon  refine 
ments,  on  a  subject  of  this  magnitude,  and  hence, 
shall  not  waste  time  in  discussing  the  difference  be 
tween  passive  and  active  disobedience  to  law.  It 
has  been  contended,  that  passive  obedience  is  al 
lowable,  where  active  is  not.  But  this  is  a  distinc 
tion  of  no  consequence,  either  practically  or  morally, 
for  he  who  refuses  to  obey,  is  just  as  liable  to  pun 
ishment,  as  he  who  seeks  to  overturn  the  authority 
which  imposed  the  unrighteous  requirement. 
5 


86  THE   HIGHER   LAW. 


CHAPTER   VIII 
SLAYEKY. 


AN  application  of  the  foregoing  principles  to 
slavery,  necessarily  involves  an  inquiry  into  the 
nature  and  effects  of  that  institution.  Is  slavery 
accordant  with  the  Higher  Law,  or  is  it  not  ?  This 
is  the  question,  and  the  only  question  to  be  settled. 
If  revelation  and  nature  favor  the  institution,  all 
attempts  to  put  it  down  are  wicked  and  must  be 
abortive.  The  laws  which  sustain  slavery,  are 
either  conformable  to  the  higher  law,  or  they  are 
not :  if  the  former  is  true,  they  should  be  cherished  ; 
if  the  latter,  they  should  be  abolished.  As  we 
most  confidently  believe  the  latter,  and  not  the  for 
mer,  to  be  the  fact  in  the  case,  we  shall  proceed  to 
examine  the  character  of  slavery  in  three  aspects — 
natural,  political,  and  religious.  In  all  these  res 
pects,  it  stands  forth  as  the  rankest  INJUSTICE. 


SLAVERY.  87 

SECTION  I. 

NATURAL    INJUSTICE    OF   SLAVERY. 

THE  slave  is  a  man,  and,  therefore,  has  the  rights 
of  a  man.  While  he  retains  his  humanity,  he 
must  retain  all  the  rights  belonging  to  humanity. 
At  all  events,  these  rights  inhere  in  his  nature,  and 
are  as  inalienable  as  are  the  rights  of  any  other 
human  being.  Whence,  then,  this  abnegation  of 
right — this  total  destruction  of  every  privilege 
guarantied  by  the  charter  of  existence?  Plainly, 
from  that  depravity,  which,  ever  since  the  Fall,  has 
waged  war  against  God,  and  against  his  creatures. 
But  to  ascertain  the  cause  of  this  injustice,  and  to 
gauge  its  extent,  are  things  very  different ;  we  may 
know  that  wrong  has  been  done,  and  yet  remain 
comparatively  unmoved,  because  we  are  ignorant 
of  the  extent  of  the  wrong.  It  is  thus  that  slavery 
has  too  frequently  passed  without  censure,  as  a  ve 
nial  fault ;  or  provoked  only  a  slight  displacency, 
when  it  ought  to  have  filled  the  soul  with  righteous 
indignation.  Barely  to  affirm  that  the  slave  is  di 
vested  of  his  natural  rights,  is  not  enough.  We 
must  enumerate  those  rights,  and  study  their  im 
portance  to  the  man  himself,  to  the  world  in  whick 
he  lives,  and  to  the  God  who  made  him,  or  we  can 
not  feel  all  the  abhorrence  towards  the  system  of 
slavery,  which  its  extreme  wickedness  deserves. 


88  THE    HIGHER    LAW. 

It  is  nevertheless  true,  that  no  possible  care,  or  skill, 
on  our  part,  can  fully  exhibit  the  injustice  of  this 
horrible  institution.  God  alone  can  measure  all 
the  depths  of  its  depravity.  The  following  partic 
ulars  embrace  as  full  a  statement  as  our  limits  will 
permit. 

1.  Slavery  takes  away  the  rigid  to  life.      This 
first  natural  right  of  man,  is  not  always  openly  re 
pealed  on  the  statute-books  of  slave-holding  states 
and  nations,  but  it  is  virtually  repealed.     The  slave 
has  no  equal  chance  for  self-defence.     His  master 
goes  armed,  but  he  is  unarmed.     And  in  case  of 
resistance,  the  law  always  gives  the  master  the  right 
to  kill  his  slave  at  once.     If  charged  with  crime, 
the  law,  not  recognizing  him  as  a  man,  withholds 
from  him  the  protection  which  it  affords  to  other 
criminals.     We  do  not  say  that  the  slave  may  b© 
killed  wantonly,  for  such  atrocity  is  not  allowed, 
even  towards  brutes,  but  we  affirm  that  his  life  is 
scarcely  more  secure  than  that  of  a  brute.     When 
ever  the  master  wishes  to  kill  him,  he  can  easily 
find  what,  in  the  eye  of  the  law,  will  be  a  justifia 
ble  pretext. 

2.  It  takes  away  all  personal  liberty.     Beyond 
the  exercise  of  those  animal  functions,  indispensa 
ble  to  existence,  the  slave  has  neither  liberty,  nor 
the  hope  of  liberty.     Even  those  physical  powers 
most  necessary  to  his  existence,  are  subjected  to 
severe  restrictions.     He  may  not  see,  or  hear,  or 
speak,  or  eat,  except  as  the  master  prescribes.  Such 


SLAVERY. 


food  and  clothing  as  are  given  him,  he  may  use, 
and  no  other ;  such  words  as  his  owner  chooses,  he 
may  hear,  and  no  other.  The  right  to  go  where  and 
when  he  will,  and  the  right  to  do,  or  not  to  do,  are 
not  his.  He  must  obey  another  in  all  things,  or 
suffer  whatever  penalty  his  master  chooses  to  in 
flict- — -it  may  be  starving,  scourging,  maiming,  sell 
ing,  imprisonment,  or  death — -for  the  law  leaves 
him,  as  it  does  any  other  property,  almost  entirely 
at  the  owner's  disposal. 

3.  It  destroys  all  self -ownership.  Every  man 
has  a  natural  right  to  himself — his  own  body 
and  mind,  with  their  various  faculties  and  powers. 
Nothing  of  this  kind  can  belong  to  the  slave,  be 
cause  the  law  which  makes  him  a  slave  strips  him 
of  the  last  vestige  of  self-control.  His  mind  and 
body,  with  all  their  capabilities,  are  the  property  of 
another.  He  can  own  nothing,  for  the  simple  rea 
son  that  he  is  nothing — a  mere  nullity  in  law,  and 
as  incapable  of  ownership  as  a  horse  or  a  tree. 
"What  protection  the  law  gives  to  his  life,  is  given, 
not  because  he  has  any  rights,  but  merely  to  pre 
serve  him  as  property.  The  law  does  not  allow  of 
a  wanton  destruction  of  property,  and  hence  some 
little  regard  is  paid  to  the  treatment  of  human,  as 
well  as  other  animals.  Were  there  no  other  out 
rage  on  the  rights  of  the  slave,  this  alone  is  suffi 
cient  to  strike  him  from  the  list  of  men.  Without 
the  right  of  possession,  he  must  drift  along  the 
stream  of  life,  blighted  and  paralyzed  beyond  re- 


90  THE   HIGHER   LAW. 

lief.  The  slave  cannot  be  a  man — the  law  will  not 
allow  it.  The  law,  having  made  him  a  chattel  per 
sonal,  disdains  to  know  him  in  any  other  capacity. 
And  if  he  has  more  sensibility  or  power  than  a 
brute,  it  is  only  because  he  could  not  be  dispossess 
ed  of  these  without  destroying  his  life,  and  there 
fore  his  value  as  a  chattel.  The  law  has  done  its 
worst — it  has  taken  all  that  could  be  taken,  and  is 
only  restrained  by  the  utter  impossibility  of  inflict 
ing  further  injury. 

4.  It  takes  away  conscience.    In  subjecting  the 
slave  to  the  will  of  h  is  master,  conscience  is  entire 
ly  set  aside.     No  man  can  have  a  conscience  unless 
he  has  either  the  power  of  choice,  as  to  what  he 
shall  do,  or  an  assurance  that  whatever  is  required 
is  infallibly  correct.     ISTo  slave  can  do  right,  except 
upon  the  mere  contingency,  that  his  owner  will  al 
low  him  to  do  so.     That  many  who  own  slaves 
would  consent  to  a  course  of  rectitude,  is  not  more 
certain  than  that  there  are  many  others  who  would 
not.     Hence  virtue  is  not  provided  for,  and  ought 
not  to  be  expected  to  exist,  in  a  slave  population. 
It  is  not  contemplated  by  the  law,  and  too  often  not 
tolerated  by  the  owner. 

5.  It  destroys  the  marriage  relation.     So  far  as 
we   have   any  knowledge,  slaves  are  incapable  of 
contracting  marriage.     They  are,  in  this  respect,  ex 
actly  on  a  level  with  brutes.     Indeed,  it  is  not  pos 
sible  that  marriage  should  exist,  for  marriage  is  a 
legal  relation,  and  implies  contracting  power ;  but 


SLAVERY.  91 

the  slave  can  make  no  contract.  He  is  unknown  in 
law,  except  as  belonging  exclusively  and  entirely 
to  another.  He  may  live  as  if  married,  but  it  would 
be  a  desecration  of  law  to  repeat  its  forms  over 
those  who  have  not  power  to  keep  the  slightest  of 
its  requirements.  The  slave,  if  he  could  be  married, 
could  not  protect  his  wife  from  insult  and  defile 
ment,  for  she  would  not  belong  to  him,  but  to  his 
owner — all  that  the  slave  has,  being  his  master's. 
Moreover,  she  might  be  sold  or  separated  from  him 
at  any  moment. 

6.  It  destroys  the  parental  relation.    This  follows 

«/  JL 

inevitably  from  the  foregoing.  When  marriage  is 
not  allowed  to  exist,  the  duty  of  parents  to  instruct 
and  provide  for  their  children  must  cease.  Amid 
universal  concubinage,  parentage  can  scarcely  be 
traced  beyond  the  mother,  and  if  it  could,  both 
mother  and  father  are  equally  unable  to  provide 
for  their  children  or  themselves.  But  the  chief  dif 
ficulty  is  the  want  of  authority.  The  slave  is  di 
vested  of  all  right  to  govern  his  children;  they 
must  obey  their  master,  and  not  their  parents. 
Again,  the  relation  is  destroyed,  because  the  chil 
dren  of  slaves  may  at  any  time  be  separated  from 
their  parents  forever.  Without  means  to  support 
his  children,  without  the  right  to  govern  them,  or 
even  to  retain  them  within  his  knowledge,  the  slave 
has  no  power  to  discharge  the  duties  of  a  parent. 

7.  It  takes  away  the  right  of  self -improvement. 
One  of  the  most  valuable  of  man's  natural  rights, 


92  THE   HIGHER   LAW. 

is  that  of  developing  his  own  powers.  His  physi 
cal,  mental,  and  moral  faculties  require  cultivation ; 
but  all  education  is  denied  him.  ISTot  only  are  no 
institutions  of  learning  provided  for  his  use,  but  the 
laws  of  eveiy  slave  state  make  it  a  high  misde 
meanor  to  teach  a  slave  to  read.  The  slave  is  kept 
in  brutal  ignorance,  that  he  may  be  kept  a  slave. 
His  owner  knows  that  knowledge  and  slavery  are 
incompatible.  All  the  cultivation  allowed  to  his 
physical  and  moral  powers,  is  of  that  questionable 
kind,  which  will  fit  him  the  better  for  a  state  of 
servitude.  He  may  be  taught  submission  and 
fidelity  to  his  master,  and  so  much  of  manual  dex 
terity  as  will  enable  him  to  work  in  the  field,  like 
the  horse  or  the  ox.  Other  cultivation  he  cannot 
have,  unless  by  stealth,  and  at  the  peril  of  greater 
hardships. 

8.  It  destroys  the  pursuit  of  happiness.  By 
cutting  off  all  the  rights  which  belong  to  man  as 
man,  it  cuts  off  all  the  motives  that  prompt  human 
nature  to  better  its  condition.  The  slave  may  toil, 
but  the  rewards  of  his  toil  are  for  another.  He 
can  neither  have  any  thing,  nor  be  any  thing,  but  a 
chattel.  His  earnings  are  not  at  his  disposal,  so 
that  if  prompted  by  the  most  devoted  affection  to 
labor,  he  must  labor  in  vain.  Virtue  and  cul 
tivation  bring  him  nothing,  except  a  keener  sense 
of  torment.  His  state  of  vassalage  precludes  all 
hope.  He  can  never  rise  to  manhood.  And  his 
posterity  after  him,  to  the  latest  hour  of  time, 


SLAVERY.  93 

shall  lie  just  as  low,  and  just  as  hopeless,  as  him 
self.  For  the  slave  there  is  nothing  but  brutal 
drudgery  up  to  the  day  of  death,  and  there  would 
be  nothing  beyond,  if  human  legislation  could  reach 
the  "  better  land." 


SECTION  II. 

POLITICAL    INJUSTICE    OF    SLAVERY. 

SLAVERY  is  the  creature  of  law.  It  originates  in 
the  law,  and  depends  upon  it  for  its  existence.  ~Not 
that  the  law  is  more  than  a  proximate  cause,  for  the 
law  itself  must  have  a  cause,  and  that  cause,  how 
ever  remote,  is  the  real  basis  of  slavery,  and  of  all 
slavery  laws.  This  primary  source  of  the  evil,  is, 
as  wTe  have  already  stated,  the  corruption  of  man's 
nature,  which  renders  him  not  only  unjust  towards 
God,  but  also  towards  the  creatures  of  God.  But 
we  have  now  to  do  only  with  the  practical  embodi 
ment  of  this  depravity,  in  the  shape  of  political 
regulations.  It  is  quite  obvious,  that  men  are  nat 
urally  on  a  level,  in  relation  to  essential  rights. 
Among  the  truths  held  to  be  self-evident,  by  the 
ever  memorable  signers  of  the  Declaration  of  Inde 
pendence —  a  class  of  men  and  a  document,  to  which 
we  cannot  too  often  refer — this  was  first,  and  in 
these  words,  "  all  men  are  created  equal."  This 
was  but  re-affirming  a  great  truth,  which  these  pa- 


94  THE   HIGHER   LAW. 

triots  deemed  too  obvious  for  argumentation — -it 
was  simply  throwing  into  words,  one  of  the  first 
dictates  of  common  sense  and  common  justice.  It 
was  no  fortunate  discovery  or  recondite  speculation 
of  theirs  ;  they  did  no  more  than  appeal  to  it  as  a 
truth,  pre-established  and  indisputably  evident  to 
all  men.  Taking  this,  then,  as  our  starting  point, 
we  must  claim  for  the  slave  an  equal  chance  in  the 
advantages  of  civil  government.  If  the  institution 
is  beneficial  to  others,  it  certainly  must  be  benefi 
cial  to  him,  unless  through  his  own  fault,  or  that  of 
others.,  But  what  is  the  actual  result  ?  This,  and 
only  this  :  slavery,  at  one  fell  swoop,  strips  its  sub 
jects  of  every  political  right.  It  is  not  a  bare  cur 
tailment  of  civil  immunities,  but  the  entire  loss  of 
all — as  if  humanity  itself  were  swept  away.  The 
slave  becomes  a  chattel,  and  ceases  to  be  a  man. 
Still  further,  to  illustrate  this  fact,  I  shall  specify 
some  of  the  more  prominent  features  of  the  slave 
code. 

1.  The  slave  has  no  part  in  making  the  laws. 
To  all  others,  except  under  the  most  absolute  mon 
archies,  where  laws  can  hardly  be  said  to  exist, 
some  chance  is  afforded  of  determining  what  the 
law  shall  be.  If  all  do  not  sit  in  legislative  assem 
blies,  or  even  have  the  right  of  suifrage,  they  are, 
nevertheless,  represented,  because  the  laws  are  made 
for  men  ;  and  their  humanity  is  represented  in  the 
humanity  of  those  who  do  make  the  laws.  Legis 
lators  legislate  for  themselves,  as  well  as  for  others, 


SLAVERY.  95 

and  they  make  such  laws  for  other  freemen  or  citi 
zens,  as  they  themselves  expect  to  keep.  But  the 
citizenship  of  the  slave  is  denied.  He  comes  not 
into  the  category  of  men ;  he  is  not  regarded  as  hu 
man.  The  laws  which  bear  upon  him,  bear  upon 
no  one  else ;  they  are  slave  laws — made  to  degrade 
men,  and  keep  them  degraded.  And  so  far  as  the 
slave  is  concerned,  none  of  the  ordinary  ends  of 
government  are  had  in  view,  in  these  enactments. 
His  protection  and  improvement,  his  welfare  and 
happiness,  are  wholly  out  of  the  question.  The 
legislation  concerns  the  master,  not  the  slave. 

2.  The  slave  has  no  part  in  administering  the 
laws.  Of  course,  this  is  only  in  keeping  with  the 
preceding.  It  might,  however,  be  some  alleviation, 
if  such  inhuman  laws  could  be  impartially  admin 
istered.  But  severe  and  ruinous  as  is  the  law,  its 
actual  administration  is,  after  all,  more  shocking. 
Caprice,  ignorance,  lust,  avarice,  pride,  madness, 
tyranny,  all  by  turns  or  at  once,  stimulate  to  abuse, 
and  where  the  law  itself  is  so  exceeding  brutal,  it 
must,  of  necessity,  under  the  influence  of  these  de 
praved  passions,  become  a  convenient  instrument  of 
unmeasured  wrongs.  The  slave  has  no  redress. 
Submission  or  death  are  the  only  alternatives.  It 
is  conceded,  that  all  slave-holders  may  not  be  thus 
severe,  but  the  ground  of  complaint  is,  that  all  may 
~be  what  the  worst  indisputably  are.  There  can  be 
no  security,  so  long  as  the  law  cuts  off  the  slave 
from  all  participation  in  guarding  his  own  rights. 


96  THE    HIGHER   LAW. 

3.  The  slave  is  treated  as  a  culprit,  and  that  with 
out  any  alleged  guilt.     One  would  naturally  suppose 
that  a  criminal  would  at  least  have  some  of  the 
usual  forms  of  justice  applied  to  him.    But  we  see 
nothing  in  his  case,  except  the  most  perfect  disin 
heritance.     As  if  predestinated  to  utter  ruin — -as  if 
all  the  possibilities  of  manhood  had  been  forfeited 
forever' — -he  is  unscrupulously  allotted  to  servitude, 
with  only  such  legislative  oversight  as  will  keep 
him  in  implicit  subjection  to  his  owner.    There  is 
no  imputation  of  personal  guilt,  and  the  infliction 
can  have  respect  to  nothing  but  ancestral  or  imag 
inary  demerit.    Neither  of  these,  however,  is  al 
leged,  and  the  worse  than  felon's  condition,  imposed 
upon  the  African,  must  be  acknowledged  to   be 
without  any  assignable  cause.     He  is  a  slave,  and, 
therefore,  must  be  a  slave — this  is  the  only  reason 
given  for  the  contumely  and  outrage  heaped  upon 
his  nature.     Whether  this  is  a  sufficient  reason,  I 
shall  not  now  inquire. 

4.  The  slave  law  takes  away  all  property,  and  all 
the  rights  of  property.    No  slave  can  sue  or  be  sued, 
because  he  cannot  be  the  owner  of  any  thing- — -not 
even  of  himself.     This  is  the  most  perfect  alienation 
possible.     It  reduces  the  individual  to  a  nonentity. 
How  disastrous  such  a  state  must  be,  will  readily 
be  perceived,   when  we   reflect  that  by  far  the 
larger  part  of  human  laws  relate,  either  directly  or 
indirectly,  to  property  interests.     It  diminishes  the 
slave  code  to  the  merest  fragment,  making  it  con- 


SLAVERY.  97 

sist  of  a  few  precepts  and  penalties — but  chiefly  the 
latter' — for  the  regulation  of  personal  conduct.  All 
the  great  interests  of  humanity  perish  at  once,  under 
this  heartless  system,  and  the  slave  becomes  as  iso 
lated  from  the  rest  of  the  human  race,  as  if  God 
had  made  him  only  what  his  owner  makes  him — a 
brute.  Such  a  living  death  is  the  inevitable  lot  of 
all,  to  whom  the  law  is  nothing  but  a  record  of  pen 
alties.  It  is  the  object  of  government  to  conserve 
all  the  rights  of  man ;  in  this  case,  however,  it  does 
exactly  the  reverse,  and  destroys  them  all.  But 
there  is  here  no  inconsistency  with  the  avowed  prin 
ciple  of  the  slave  code,  for  it  everywhere  assumes 
that  the  slave  is  not  a  man. 

5.  The  next  particular,  is  a  total  restriction  of 
personal  liberty.  No  more  is  allowed  the  slave,  in 
this  respect,  than  is  allowed  the  cattle  of  the  field. 
He  may  go  where  his  owner  permits,  but  no  where 
else.  But  the  condition  of  the  slave  falls  much  be 
low  that  of  the  brute ;  since  the  latter  may  stray 
with  impunity,  while  the  former  is  liable  to  the  se 
verest  punishment,  for  such  an  offence.  Both  are 
considered  as  personal  property,  and  neither  may 
leave  his  owner  without  permission.  Such  a  law 
cuts  off  all  emigration,  and  nearly  all  business  of  a 
commercial  nature,  except  in  the  slave  states.  It 
renders  those  changes  and  removals,  which  are 
prompted  by  industry  and  enterprise,  an  utter  im 
possibility.  And  if  there  were  no  other  unjust  laws 
bearing  upon  the  slave,  this  alone  would  ensure  his 


98  THE    HIGHER   LAW. 

ruin.  Give  him  all  the  other  rights  of  manhood, 
but  take  away  personal  freedom,  and  all  his  ener 
gies  will  remain  dormant. 

6.  The  slave  is  subjected  to  disproportioned  pun 
ishments.     The  penal  code  of  slavery  is  not  only 
made  and  administered,  irrespective  of  the  right 
which  every  man  has  to  regulate  the  civil  institute 
under  which  he  lives,  but  it  bears  the  stamp  of  in 
tentional  cruelty.     Degradation  is  its  object.     The 
slave  is  to  be  made  to  feel  that  he  is  not  human, 
and,  therefore  his  faults  are  punished  with  ^  severity 
unknown  to   human  jurisprudence.      In   the   first 
place,  the  law  imposes  upon  him  a  great  many  re 
strictions,  such  as  could  be  imposed  only  by  the 
most  intolerable  tyranny,  a*d  then  seeks  to  enforce 
the  observance  of  these  restrictions  by  bloody  pen 
alties.     These  shocking,  demoniacal  barbarities,  are 
worthy  of  that  supreme  wickedness,  for  the  support 
of  which  they  are  employed. 

7.  The  laws  afford  Mm  no  protection.     It  has 
been  shown,  in  the  previous  section,  that  even  life 
is  not  guarded  by  the  slave  law.     All  other  rights 
are  swept  away  at  once,  by  converting  him  into  a 
chattel,  and  if  life  were  not  essential  to  the  value  of 
the  chattel,  there  is  every  reason  to  believe  the  slave 
would  be  killed  with  as  little  ceremony  as  any  other 
animal.     As  the  law  now  stands,  he  is  exposed  to 
the  fury  of  the  most  diabolical  passions,  and  may 
be  mutilated  or  slaughtered,  whenever  his  master 
chooses,  provided  some  decent  excuse  can  be  in- 


SLAVERY.  99 

vented,  to  cover  the  deed  of  infamy.  All  other  in 
dignities  follow,  of  course.  Where  life  is  not  pro 
tected,  it  is  in  vain  to  look  for  the  protection  of 
other  rights.  Thus,  the  very  object  for  which  law 
exists  among  men,  is  wholly  lost  sight  of,  and  the 
slave  is  as  completely  shut  out  from  every  ad 
vantage  of  this  kind,  as  if  he  had  not  been  created 
a  member  of  the  human  family. 

8.  The  laws  afford  him  no  assistance  whatever. 
Instead  of  the  kindly  aid,  which  government  was 
designed  to  give  to  every  human  being,  the  slave 
experiences  nothing  but  systematic  spoliation.  Gov 
ernment,  though  a  blessing  to  others,  is  to  him  the 
severest  curse.  He  reaps  none  of  the  good  which 
it  might  do,  but  suffers  all  the  evils  which  its  ut 
most  perversion  can  inflict.  An  institution  that 
others  regard  as  the  charter  of  rights,  is,  to  him, 
only  a  record  of  perpetual  disinheritance.  JSTot  one 
of  all  the  numerous  advantages  of  association  can 
he  know,  inasmuch  as  the  law  has  cast  him  beyond 
its  pale,  and  heeds  him  only  as  a  being  made  to  be 
spoiled. 


SECTION  III. 

RELIGIOUS    INJUSTICE    OF    SLAVERY. 

SLAVERY  and  Christianity  are  eternal  oppositcs,  as 
separate  from  each  other  as  vice  is  from  virtue,  or 
heaven  from  hell.  This  is  a  truth,  almost  too  well 


100  THE   HIGHER   LAW. 

known  to  need  illustration,  but  we  will  briefly  state 
the  facts  on  which  the  declaration  is  made,  and 
which  forever  place  slavery  in  the  category  of 
crimes. 

1.  It  is  opposed  to  the  law  of  love.  Christianity 
teaches  us  to  love  God  with  all  the  heart,  and  our 
neighbor  as  ourselves.  Neither  can  be  done  by  him 
who  robs  a  fellow  being  of  liberty,  and  of  every 
other  essential  right.  It  is  no  worse  to  rob  a  man 
of  money,  than  it  is  to  rob  him  of  that  which  is 
equivalent  to  money.  The  crime  of  robbing  does 
not  consist  in  taking  money  or  goods  simply,  but  in 
taking  that  which  is  valuable ;  it  is  forcibly  inva 
ding  another's  rights.  Now,  if  liberty  is  of  any 
value  to  the  colored  man,  the  law  of  love  will  not 
allow  him  to  be  dispossessed  of  it,  unless  for  rea 
sons  of  a  punitive  nature,  and  no  one  pretends  that 
slavery  is  designed  as  a  punishment.  Love  requires 
that  we  should  be  quite  as  willing  to  become  a  slave, 
as  to  impose  that  condition  on  another. .  It  avails 
nothing  to  say,  that  others  have  imposed  the  con 
dition,  and  that  we  have  only  acquiesced  in  what 
was  already  done;  for  we  may  as  well  kill  the 
prophets  as  build  their  tombs,  if,  by  our  conduct,  we 
sanction  their  murder.  To  keep  stolen  property, 
when  it  is  known  to  have  been  stolen,  and  when  it 
is  in  our  power  to  return  it  to  the  owner,  is  the 
basest  injustice — is  theft.  Men  are  brethren,  and 
one  great  object  of  the  gospel  is,  to  restore  fraternal 
feeling  to  the  human  heart ;  but  this  cannot  be  done 


SLAVERY.  101 

without  annihilating  slavery,  which  is  at  war  with 
all  fraternal  feelings. 

2.  It  is  opposed  to  the  law  of  improvement. 
Christianity  improves  all  who  come  under  its  influ 
ence  ;  it  is  an  elevating  power,  which  never  fails  to 
raise  both  the  head  and  the  heart  to  higher  excel 
lence.  But  slavery  crushes  the  whole  man,  and 
keeps  him  forever  crushed  —  a  thing  of  naught,  nei 
ther  man  nor  brute.  Such  a  being  cannot  be  a 
Christian,  nor  can  Christianity  produce  such  a  for 
lorn  thing — a  being  so  blighted,  wrecked,  hopeless. 
It  may  seem  a  bold  proposition,  but  we  affirm,  that 
whether  we  contemplate  the  master  or  the  slave, 
Christianity  is  impossible  to  the  relation.  Could  the 
slave  remain  as  ignorant  and  powerless  as  he  was 
before  his  conversion,  then  he  might  still  be  a  slave, 
but  by  virtue  of  his  translation  into  the  kingdom  of 
Christ,  he  is  made  free  :  1.  From  every  law  of 
man  which  conflicts  with  his  obligation  to  God.  2. 
From  that  imbecility  peculiar  to  ignorance.  3. 
From  irresponsibility,  or  that  absence  of  all  charac 
ter,  which  makes  the  mere  chattel.  The  slave,  as 
a  heathen,  has  no  rights,  no  conscience,  no  wife,  no 
children.  But  Christianity  strips  him  quickly  of 
this  irresponsibility,  and  restores  his  manhood,  by 
giving  him  duties  to  perform,  with  which  no  other 
man  may  interfere.  The  converted  slave  is,  there 
fore,  by  the  very  fact  of  his  conversion,  brought 
under  an  authority  which  destroys  all  human  owner 
ship  in  him,  and  all  improper  control  over  him.  The 


102  THE   HIGHER   LAW. 

master  is  restrained  in  like  manner.  He  may  not 
keep  a  slave,  because  he  cannot  keep,  innocently,  a 
human  being  degraded ;  he  is  bound  to  labor  for 
the  intellectual,  moral,  and  physical  improvement 
of  all  mankind.  Show  us  any  class  of  men,  towards 
whom  the  Christian  may  even  be  indifferent,  and 
then  we  will  admit  that  religion  does  not  necessarily 
destroy  the  relation  of  slave  and  master. 

3.  It  is  opposed  to  the  law  of  purity.  Holiness,  or 
moral  purity,  is  one  of  the  most  essential  principles  of 
the  gospel,  but  slavery  is  a  violation  of  right,  and 
therefore,  cannot  be  consistent  with  a  system  that  for 
bids  all  wrong —  all  unholiness.  Few  men  have  ever 
been  so  fool-hardy,  as  to  attempt  to  prove  that  slave 
ry  is  right,  per  se.  Such  an  attempt  could  only  show 
that  the  man  who  made  it,  had  no  proper  ideas  of 
right  and  wrong — that,  in  his  mind,  vice  and  vir- 
ture  were  all  the  same,  or  were  distinguished  from 
each  other  by  something  which  had  no  relation  to 
human  happiness.  Is  it  right  to  hold  a  man  as  a 
slave?  Certainly  not.  The  common  sense,  the 
feelings,  and  the  judgment  of  men,  are  as  much 
united  in  denying  the  justice  of  slavery,  as  they  are 
ii£  denying  that  of  murder.  Now,  as  a  holy  reli 
gion  cannot  sanction  an  unholy  practice,  it  follows, 
invariably,  that  wherever  the  gospel  prevails,  sla 
very  must  cease.  All  Christians,  and  all  Christian 
ministers,  will  behold  it  with  abhorrence,  and  en 
quire,  "  What  shall  be  done  for  the  extirpation  of 
the  evil  of  slavery  ?" 


SLAVERY.  103 

4.  It  is  opposed  to  the  law  of  equality.  The  gos 
pel  is  a  system  of  spiritual  agrarianism.  It  puts 
the  prince  and  the  peasant  on  a  level,  giving  to 
each  in  proportion  to  his  faith,  and  only  in  propor 
tion  to  his  faith.  In  the  church  there  is  neither 
high  nor  low,  neither  great  nor  small.  Slavery  dis 
turbs  this  equality,  and  instead  of  putting  all  on  a 
level,  where  the  God  of  nature  and  of  grace  puts 
them,  it  gives  to  one  man  all  power,  and  to  the 
other  none.  This  is  unchristian,  because  it  is  un 
kind.  It  is  not  doing  to  the  colored  man,  as  the 
white  man  wishes  should  be  done  to  himself.  It  is 
unbrotherly,  cruel,  unjust.  And  in  fact,  the  whole 
question  of  emancipation,  whether  immediate  or 
gradual,  is  simply  a  question  of  justice.  Slavery  is 
injustice — unprovoked,  inexcusable,  and  immeasur 
able  injustice.  The  colored  man  has  just  the  same 
right — df  right  there  can  be — to  subject  the  white 
man  to  bondage,  to  hold  him,  with  his  wife  and 
his  children,  as  chattels,  subject  to  separation  and 
to  sale.  The  white  man  need  not  be  shocked  at 
this,  for  when  we  come  to  the  abstract  justice  of 
slavery,  the  color  of  the  skin  makes  no  difference. 
Eternal  justice  demands  that  the  slave  go  free. 
His  bondage  is  a  fraud  on  creation.  Those  who 
hold  him,  and  those  who  consent  to  his  being  held 
as  a  slave,  are  the  guilty  perpetrators  of  this  fraud. 
It  is  not  for  us  to  say  how  far  they  mean  to  be  fraud 
ulent,  and  to  pervert  the  justice  of  the  All-creating 
Hand  which  dispenses  the  gift  of  freedom  to  each 


104  THE    HIGHER   LAW. 

alike ;  we  are  witnesses  to  the  fact  only,  and  have 
no  power  to  determine  the  exact  turpitude  of  the 
motives  which  influence  the  oppressor.  His  proud 
wrath  may  be  less  criminal  than  we  had  supposed, 
but  the  natural  history  of  slavery  reveals  itself 
everywhere  as  a  violence  done  to  nature.  Hence, 
though  for  political  reasons  wTe  might  wish  to  avoid 
extremes,  yet  moral  rectitude  allows  of  no  compro 
mise.  .  There  is  no  mid'dle  ground.  We  must  either 
let  the  oppressed  go  free,  or  ourselves  be  worse  than 
slaves — unjust.  Had  men  no  consciences,  they 
might  innocently  be  slave-holders,  but  as  the  case 
now  stands,  the  white  man  must  become  a  knave  if 
the  colored  man  becomes  a  slave.  The  struggle, 
therefore,  is  to  avoid  guilt.  The  North  may  be 
moved  partly  by  sympathy,  but  by  far  the  sternest 
motive  known  to  anti-slavery  men  is,  a  sense  of  that 
equal  justice  which  is  ever  due  from  man  to  man. 
5.  It  is  opposed  to  the  law  of  truth.  Religion  is 
true ;  it  is  founded  in  truth,  and  inculcates  only 
truth.  But  slavery  is  false,  fundamentally  false, 
and  leads  all  astray  who  have  any  thing  to  do  with 
it.  The  master,  the  slave,  civilization,  and  religion, 
are  alike  ruined  by  its  influence.  Christianity 
never  leaves  a  man  with  so  little  light,  as  to  make 
him  the  victim  of  such  an  error.  He  who  thinks 
to  prosper  by  oppression,  mistakes  the  economy  of 
Providence.  The  poor  and  the  ignorant  are  to  be 
raised  up,  and  made  equal  with  other  men  ;  this  is 
the  way  to  prosperity,  as  indicated  by  the  gospel, 


SLAVERY.  105 

and  it  is  no  wonder  that  the  slave  states,  acting  for 
generations  in  open  disregard  of  so  important  a 
truth,  should  steadily  decline,  while  all  around 
them  is  nourishing  in  the  highest  degree.  It  is  but 
the  blight  and  curse  which  always  follow  sin. 

6.  It  is  opposed  to  the  law  of  God  as  God.  Not, 
indeed,  if  we  concede  that  slavery  is  in  accordance 
with  the  Divine  law,  for  then  the  master  becomes 
as  God — his  tyranny  is  but  an  expression  of  the 
Divine  will.  And  this  sort  of  justification,  it  is 
well  known,  is  a  prime  object  with  all  slavery  prop 
agandists.  They  affect  to  be  executing  the  predeter 
mined  purpose  of  Heaven  ;  and  when  this  subterfuge 
will  not  answer,  they  claim  that  God  has  delegated 
all  power  to  civil  government,  and  that  the  decrees 
of  such  government  cannot  be  resisted  without 
sin.  This  hypothesis,  it  is  true,  does  not  affect 
slavery  alone :  it  crushes  at  once  all  religious  free 
dom,  and  makes  men  obey  the  state,  whether  it  bids 
them  do  right  or  wrong.  When  there  is  a  plain 
conflict  between  the  Divine  and  human,  the  latter 
must  always  have  precedence.  It  is  clear,  therefore, 
that  the  kingdom  of  God  cannot  be  established  in 
connection  with  such  pretensions,  unless  it  takes  the 
form  of  politics,  and  identifies  itself  always  with 
the  dominant  party.  But  such  fatalism,  or  panthe 
ism,  is  the  merest  evasion  of  all  argument,  and  in 
practice  amounts  to  downright  atheism.  The  sub 
stance  is  this :  slavery  must  be  sanctioned  at  all 
events,  and  neither  God  nor  man  may  teach  or  prac- 


106  THE   HIGHER   LAW. 

tice  to  the  contrary.  "We  therefore  conclude,  that 
the  law  of  God  cannot  be  known  among  slave-hold 
ers  as  the  law  of  God,  because  in  this  character  it 
might  have  inconvenient  claims — it  would  be  su 
perior  to  any  law  they  could  make,  and  this  supe 
riority  would  reduce  their  slavery  code  to  a  nullity. 

These  general  considerations  are  amply  sufficient 
to  show  that  the  spirit  of  Christianity  is  subversive 
of  slavery,  and  that  there  is  no  safety  for  the  pecu 
liar  institution  but  in  the  absence  of  religion. 
"Where  the  gospel  is,  slavery  cannot  be.  They  can 
never  coalesce.  It  is,  however,  not  the  spirit  alone 
of  the  gospel  that  is  opposed  to  slavery ;  the  letter 
is  equally  hostile  to  every  thing  of  the  kind.  We 
admit  that  slavery  is  not  specifically  prohibited  in 
the  New  Testament.  Neither  are  murder,  burgla 
ry,  counterfeiting,  and  various  other  high  crimes. 
Shall  we  conclude  that  these  are  consistent  with 
Christianity,  because  they  are  not  particularly  speci 
fied  among  its  prohibitions  ?  We  are  enjoined  to  do 
no  evil,  to  be  holy,  and  to  be  kind,  and  these  gene 
ral  precepts  are  a  literal  prohibition  of  slavery,  with 
all  its  kindred  abominations. 

How  far  religion  may  exist  in  connection  with 
the  bare  form  of  slavery,  aside  from  its  spirit,  I  do 
not  pretend  to  determine.  But  as  the  slave  law  is 
unjust,  Christianity  must  of  necessity  render  it  a 
dead  letter;  the  two  cannot  co-exist.  It  may  be 
possible,  that  in  some  rare  instances  the  spirit  of  the 
institution  is  so  entirely  dead,  that  though  the  form 


SLAYEET.  107 

remains,  it  is  innocuous.  Still,  the  presence  of 
such  an  instrument  of  tyranny,  is  always  good  evi 
dence  that  the  spirit  of  tyranny  is  also  present. 
The  laws  of  a  people  are  a  true  index  to  their  dis 
positions.  Were  only  the  dead  letter  of  the  law 
remaining,  as  is  often  alleged  in  favor  of  those  who 
hold  slaves,  it  would  nevertheless  be  very  dangerous 
to  continue  in  such  a  relation.  These  dead  laws 
would  be  a  temptation  to  cruelty  and  injustice  ;  the 
evil  spirit  would  come  again  to  inhabit  those  souls 
from  which  it  had  been  expelled,  and  to  revive  the 
laws  which  had  become  dead.  Safety  requires  that 
the  letter,  as  well  as  the  spirit  of  the  law,  should  be 
extirpated,  for  the  one  begets  the  other.  But  this 
is  mainly  a  question  of  prudence,  and  I  shall  not 
detain  the  reader  writh  a  further  discussion  of  it. 


108  THE   HIGHEK   LAW. 


CHAPTER   IX. 
THE   EFFECTS   OF   SLAYEKY. 


SIMPLE  injustice,  however  enormous,  is  by  no 
means  expressive  of  all  the  evils  that  belong  to  slave 
ry.  To  the  deliberate  crushing  of  a  race,  there  must 
be  added  that  long  list  of  sad  effects  which  so  sure 
ly  follows,  whenever  the  rights  of  humanity  are 
trampled  down.  These  evil  consequences  are  in 
separable  from  the  system,  and  may  be  distinctly 
seen  in  every  slave-holding  community.  They  relate 
to  the  SLAVE,  the  SLAVE-HOLDER,  and  the  STATE. 


SECTION  I. 

EFFECTS     ON"     THE     SLAVE. 

THE  birds-eye  view  which  we  took  of  slavery,  in 
the  preceding  chapter,  though  far  from  exhibiting 
all  its  colossal  wickedness,  was  sufficient  to  demon 
strate  that  the  slave  must  sink  to  the  deepest  wretch 
edness.  His  rights  gone,  and  all  the  incentives  to 
improvement  taken  away,  his  very  humanity  crush- 


EFFECTS    OF   SLAVERY.  109 

ed,  and  every  hope  of  regaining  it  lost,  it  would  be 
folly  to  expect  any  thing  but  the  most  perfect  degra 
dation.  As  he  has  no  opportunities  above  a  brute, 
he  will,  of  course,  become  brutal.  He  can  aspire 
to  nothing  higher  than  the  gratification  of  his  ani 
mal  appetites,  because  there  is  nothing  higher  with 
in  his  reach — nothing  else  allowed  him  by  the  law, 
and  not  even  this,  except  under  severe  restrictions. 
Slaves  are  proverbially  inefficient  laborers,  but  this 
is  only  a  natural  result  of  compelling  them  to  work 
in  the  absence  of  proper  motives.  What  they  earn 
is  not  theirs ;  and  white  men  would  be  just  as  dila 
tory  and  worthless,  if  obliged  to  toil  under  the  same 
circumstances.  They  are  also  comparatively  use 
less,  owing  to  the  extreme  ignorance  in  which  they 
must  be  kept.  The  mechanic  arts  and  the  sciences 
cannot  be  taught  them,  without  disqualifying  them 
for  servitude.  In  fact,  the  very  knowledge  which 
would  fit  them  for  any  branch  of  business,  would 
melt  their  chains.  It  is  therefore  necessary  to  keep 
them  ignorant  in  order  to  keep  them  at  all.  Knowl 
edge  is  power,  and  slaves  are  allowed  no  power,  lest 
they  should  use  it  for  their  own  good.  Everywhere, 
then,  this  kind  of  population  must  exhibit  the  imbe 
cility  of  ignorance. 

Poverty  follows  in  the  train  of  compulsory  igno 
rance.      The  slave   has  nothing.      He  is   kept  so 
degraded  that  but  little  could  be  his,  if  he  were  per 
mitted  to  have  what  he  earns.    His  ignorant  drudg- 
6 


110  THE   HIGHER   LAW. 

ery  would  only  yield  a  scanty  support  at  best ;  yet 
even  this  is  not  afforded  him,  and  he  is  forced  to 
subsist,  not  as  a  man,  but  as  an  animal.  And  he 
is  clothed  and  housed  as  he  is  fed ;  that  is,  in  the 
coarsest  manner,  and  on  such  a  scanty  allowance  as 
may  be  convenient,  after  the  owner's  cupidity  and 
luxury  have  been  provided  for,  out  of  this  unpaid 
and  unproductive  labor. 

The  next  effect  of  the  system  is  its  total  perver 
sion  of  the  nobler  instincts  of  the  soul.  It  strikes 
out  of  man's  nature  all  that  is  human,  and  leaves  a 
wreck.  It  dwarfs  into  a  brute,  a  being  which  God 
intended  for  a  man.  This  is  the  sin  of  slavery. 
This  is  its  grand  effect.  The  beings  thus  despoiled 
are  not  dead,  but  ruined ;  their  physical  nature  is 
not  dead,  but  their  humanity  is.  Neither  the  cares, 
nor  the  aspirations,  nor  the  hopes,  nor  the  duties, 
nor  the  motives,  which  ought  to  actuate  man,  are 
ever  known  to  these  degraded  beings.  The  benefi 
cence  and  wisdom  of  the  Creator  are  set  at  naught. 
He  might  as  well  have  made  the  African  incapable 
of  the  functions  of  humanity,  since  the  slave-holder 
decides  that  these  functions  shall  never  be  exercised. 
So  much  is  done  in  the  first  generation  towards  de 
humanizing  the  slave ;  and  if  the  effects  of  the  sys 
tem  are  so  disastrous  on  the  first  generation,  what 
must  they  be  when  accumulated  in  his  nature  by 
means  of  hereditary  transmission  ?  It  is  precisely 
this  superinduced  weakness  and  meanness  which 


EFFECTS    OF   SLAVERY.  Ill 

give  to  slavery  its  permanence,  and  to  the  master 
his  security.  He  has  succeeded  in  growing  a  race 
of  men — men  only  in  form — fitted  for  servility. 

As  the  slave  cannot  be  trusted  with  knowledge, 
so  neither  can  he  be  trusted  with  any  of  the  results 
of  knowledge.  Machinery,  now  of  such  transcend 
ent  importance  to  all  civilized  countries,  is  a  thing 
next  to  impossible  where  slavery  exists.  To  work 
machinery  requires  intelligence ;  but  the  utmost 
pains  are  taken — even  to  the  enactment  of  severe 
prohibitory  laws — to  keep  the  slave  in  ignorance. 
He  is  therefore  doomed  to  incapability,  and  must 
forego  all  the  advantages  which  mechanical  inven 
tion  has  conferred  upon  the  world.  That  is,  he  must 
be  a  savage ;  for  it  amounts  to  this,  since  there  is 
little  difference  between  civilized  and  uncivilized, 
except  in  the  state  of  the  arts  and  sciences. 


SECTION  II. 

EFFECTS    ON    THE    SLAVE-HOLDER. 

BY  a  law  of  Providence,  the  injurer  as  well  as  the 
injured,  suffers.  The  doer  of  wrong  cannot  escape 
the  effects  of  his  own  conduct.  That  law  which 
forces  the  slave  to  lose  caste  among  human  be 
ings,  is  scarcely  less  ruinous  to  his  master.  The 
industry,  that  should  have  promoted  health  and  vir- 


112  THE    HIGHER    LAW. 

tue,  is  dispensed  with,  and  all  the  deplorable  conse 
quences  of  idleness  follow.  Labor  is  deemed  fit 
only  for  slaves,  and  hence  the  master,  together  with 
his  children,  falls  into  habits  of  sloth  and  effeminacy, 
as  discreditable  as  they  are  pernicious.  Such  hab 
its  are  not  only  evil  in  themselves,  and  in  their 
effects  upon  the  slave-owner,  but  they  subtract  from 
the  common  store,  by  just  so  much  as  the  well-di 
rected  industry  of  those  who  are  idle  would  have 
earned.  And  this  is  another  source  of  the  poverty 
common  to  all  slave-holding  states.  Wealth  is  the 
fruit  of  toil.  But  where  only  a  part,  say  one-half, 
labor,  and  these  under  the  greatest  disadvantage, 
because  of  the  profound  ignorance  in  which  they 
must  be  kept,  extreme  poverty  is  an  unavoidable 
consequence.  In  estimating  the  wealth  of  slave- 
holding  communities,  we  are  liable  to  miscalculate, 
inasmuch  as  the  entire  body  of  slaves  have  nothing, 
and  are  expected  to  have  nothing.  If  the  few  slave 
owners  are  not  degradingly  poor,  it  is  because  they 
are  the  only  property-holders.  It  will  be  found, 
moreover,  that  their  wealth  is  often  wholly  fictitious, 
consisting  of  what,  in  other  states,  is  never  called 
property — namely,  the  bodies  and  souls  of  men. 
This  is  not  wealth,  and  would  not  be  regarded  as 
such,  in  a  free  country :  yet  it  makes  by  far  the 
larger  part  of  all  the  riches  of  a  slave-holding  peo 
ple.  How  degraded  and  impoverished  must  be 
that  community,  which  has  to  inventory  the  bones 
and  sinews  of  one  half  of  its  number  as  property, 


EFFECTS    OF   SLAVERY.  113 

in  order  that  the  other  half  may  be  said  to  have 
wealth !  The  expedient  fails,  however,  and  with 
all  their  sacrilegious  counting  of  men  as  property, 
the  slave  states  are,  and  must  be,  wretchedly  poor. 
Their  poverty,  notwithstanding  it  is  extreme,  is 
only  a  minor  evil.  Released  from  the  salutary 
toil  which  enriches  freemen,  slave-holders  sink  into 
dissipation  and  debauchery.  An  idle  people  must 
ever  be  vicious  as  well  as  poor.  But  their  vices 
flow  chiefly  from  another  source ;  having  broken 
down  all  law  and  all  right,  on  the  part  of  their 
slaves,  this  absence  of  restraint  becomes  a  copious 
fountain  of  corruption.  Indeed,  the  first  act  in  this 
drama  of  crime  draws  after  it  all  the  rest.  The 
slave  is  plundered  in  the  outset  of  every  thing  per 
taining  to  him  as  a  man,  and  this  commencement 
indicates  the  spirit  which  is  to  control  his  subse 
quent  history.  One  crime  naturally  follows  another, 
and  those  who  have  left  their  victim  defenceless, 
will  be  sure  to  yield  to  the  temptation  which  such 
a  state  offers  to  the  commission  of  further  crimes. 
Strike  down  the  right  of  a  man  to  protect  himself 
from  insult,  and  he  is  sure  to  be  treated  as  a  brute ; 
take  from  woman  the  right  to  defend  her  virtue, 
and  she  is  equally  sure  to  become  polluted.  Wheth 
er  this  utter  corruption  was  intended  or  not,  by 
those  wTho  first  instituted  slavery,  is  of  little  moment, 
since  the  fact  of  its  existence  cannot  be  questioned. 
That  the  most  shocking  cruelty,  and  the  grossest 
licentiousness  abound,  wrherever  slavery  is  tolerated, 


THE    HIGHER    LAW. 

is  too  apparent  to  need  proof — is  admitted  even  by 
slave-holders  themselves.  ~Nor  is  this  corruption 
optional  with  either  the  slaves  or  their  masters. 
The  relation  of  the  parties  being  unnatural  and 
criminal  in  itself,  leads  inevitably  to  further  wick 
edness.  The  spirit  which  degraded  the  man  or 
woman,  is  necessary  to  keep  such  man  or  woman 
degraded.  The  same  crushing,  robbing,  polluting, 
heartless  invasion  of  rights,  must  be  kept  up  to  the 
last.  Under  a  better  spirit,  slavery  would  soon  be 
come  extinct,  and  that,  too,  without  legislative  aid. 
Its  enormities  could  not  be  perpetrated  by  pure 
minds.  The  system  being  the  opposite  of  virtue, 
would  be  a  flat  impossibility  among  the  virtuous. 
A  good  regime  can  never  know  such  a  monstrosity. 
The  dreadful  necessity,  then,  is  imposed  on  every 
slave-holder,  of  personally  and  intentionally  en 
slaving  man.  He  cannot  be  a  mere  inheritor  of 
slaves,  but  in  order  to  hold  them,  must  acquire  the 
same  dispositions  which  originally  reduced  them  to 
bondage.  This  is  not  theory,  but  fact.  The  child 
of  every  slave  mother  is  as  really  made  a  slave,  by 
the  owner  of  the  mother,  as  if  it  had  been  pur 
chased  in  Africa  for  the  purpose  of  enslavement. 
And  in  this  way  slave-holders  are  not  barely  hold 
ing  the  slaves  which  past  generations  had  entailed 
upon  them,  but  actually  enslaving  all  the  children 
who  are  born  of  slave  parents.  Hence,  whatever 
guilt  may  be  affirmed  of  the  first  slave-holder,  may 
be  affirmed  of  all  his  successors.  ~No  child  is  born 


EFFECTS   OF  SLAVEEY.  115 

a  slave,  or  can  be;  such  a  thing  is  unknown  in  na 
ture.  But  as  the  children  of  slaves  are  all  made 
slaves,  it  follows  that  slave-holders,  notwithstanding 
their  pretensions  to  chivalry,  are  guilty  of  preying 
upon  helpless  infancy,  and  robbing  it  of  every 
right — even  its  very  humanity.  Infancy,  which 
always  finds  protection  among  the  good,  is  thus 
cruelly  outraged  by  slave-holders.  This  dastardly, 
ignoble  conduct  has  no  parallel  in  human  wicked 
ness.  Compared  with  it,  ordinary  robbery  appears 
but  a  venial  fault.  It  has  none  of  the  courage 
which  marks  the  brigand.  It  has  no  redeeming 
qualities  ;  it  is  sheer  depravity,  deliberately  blotting 
out  all  the  traces  of  manhood,  and  cutting  off  all 
the  possibilities  of  happiness.  But  I  will  not  dwell 
on  this  reproachful  aspect  of  the  subject. 

Aside  from  the  evils  just  enumerated,  is  another, 
less  observed,  but  scarcely  less  pernicious.  I  allude 
to  the  wanton  contempt  for  MAN,  which  this  abomi 
nable  system  renders  necessary.  Not  only  towards 
the  slave  is  there  unfeeling  and  unbrotherly  treat 
ment,  but  a  habit  of  tyrannizing  is  formed,  which 
displays  itself  in  implacable  resentment  and  mur 
derous  strife,  whenever  opportunity  offers.  The 
sanctity  of  man  is  destroyed.  Hands,  that  have  so 
often  stripped  human  nature  of  its  all,  save  life, 
and  that  without  any  provocation  whatever,  can 
hardly  be  expected  to  deal  kindly  and  respectfully 
with  more  than  a  few  personal  and  partisan  friends. 
It  is  j  ust  this  want  of  regard  for  man  as  man,  that  has 


116  THE   HIGHER   LAW. 

made  all  attempts  to  abolish  slavery  so  difficult.  A 
peculiar  recklessness  of  life  and  character,  a  fierce 
and  almost  insane  devotion  to  existing  usages,  irre 
spective  of  right  or  wrong,  have  rendered  every 
effort  at  improvement,  both  dangerous  and  imprac 
ticable.  We  cannot  account  for  this,  except  on  the 
ground  of  moral  deterioration.  Slave-holders  seem 
to  have  no  interest  inhuman  progress  —  certainly 
none,  but  directly  the  reverse,  in  reference  to  their 
slaves ;  and  the  necessity  which  they  are  under  to 
maintain  this  hostility  to  the  improvement  of  some, 
naturally  makes  them  indifferent,  if  not  hostile,  to 
the  improvement  of  all.  This  inertia,  or  misan 
thropy  of  character,  is  the  clue  to  the  utter  despair 
which  prevails  in  all  slave-holding  states,  touching 
the  success  of  emancipation.  The  public  mind,  in 
such  communities,  is  so  unused  to  enterprize,  that 
it  halts,  with  childish  dread,  at  difficulties  which 
would  only  provoke  a  more  determined  trial  among 
the  pure  and  the  vigorous.  As  purity  is  power,  and 
impurity  is  weakness,  none  have  a  vigorous  moral 
purpose,  but  those  in  whom  conscience  has  its  full 
sway.  Hence,  there  is  moral  atrophy  wherever 
there  is  slavery. 

Again,  slavery  does  not  afford  opportunity  for 
cultivating  the  higher  virtues.  It  is  necessary  to 
refrain  from  great  plans  of  improvement,  lest  the 
slave  interest  be  subverted  thereby.  No  schemes 
of  amelioration,  no  means  of  elevation,  are  wanted, 
in  such  a  community.  It  would  jeopard  the  "  pe- 


EFFECTS   OF   SLAVEKY.  117 

culiar  institution,"  to  cherish  such  designs  in  its 
presence.  We  accordingly  find  either  an  utter 
stagnation  of  thought  in  such  communities,  on 
all  the  subjects  of  practical  benevolence,  or,  what 
is  much  the  same,  these  thoughts  are  confined  to  the 
relief  of  those  in  remote  countries — the  heathen 
of  other  lands,  instead  of  their  own. 

I  do  not  affirm  that  all  who  have  to  do  with  sla 
very  are  equally  affected  by  the  system.  Its  dis 
astrous  consequences  may  be  less  fatal  to  some  than 
to  others  ;  but  the  tendency  of  the  system  is  always 
the  same,  and  all  who  come  under  its  influence, 
must  be  depraved,  more  or  less.  So  true  is  this,  that 
it  is  doubtful  which  suffers  most  from  slavery — the 
slave  or  his  master. 


SECTION  III. 

ITS    EFFECTS    ON    THE    STATE. 

As  might  be  expected,  every  slave  country  has 
its  uncontrollable  evils.  These  defy  all  exact  enu 
meration,  and  all  precise  measurement ;  but  we  may 
profit  by  a  hasty  glance  at  them.  First,  then,  we 
notice  the  absence  of  cultivation.  In  order  to  til 
lage  and  husbandry — such  as  belong  to  agricultural 
thrift — it  is  necessary  that  at  least  the  heavier  re 
straints  of  industry  be  thrown  off.  The  ignorance , 
6* 


118  THE   HIGHEK   LAW, 

the  want  of  motive,  and  the  want  of  implements1, 
which  characterize  slave  labor,  are  insurmountable 
obstacles  to  the  culture  of  the  soil  Men,  as  chat 
tels  or  animals,  have  sinews,  and  may  perform  va 
rious  operations  on  land,  but  they  will  never  cultivate 
it  with  success-.  They  lack  the  means  for  such  a 
work.  ]S"o  country  was  ever  thoroughly  improved, 
and  its  resources  developed,  by  such  laborers. 
Something  may  be  done,  and  is  done,  or  slavery 
could  not  exist ;  but  the  full  capacity  of  the  soil  for 
production,  is  never  elicited  under  such  circumstan 
ces.  In  the  Southern  states,  large  portions  of  the 
country,  once  fertile,  have  actually  deteriorated,  un 
til  they  have  become  worthless,  and  their  occupants 
have  had  to  seek  new  plantations.  Such  an  occur 
rence  was  never  known  in  a  free  country.  But  it 
is  by  no  means  uncommon,  where  slave-holding  is 
practiced,  or  where,  from  extreme  tyranny,  all  citi 
zens  are  reduced  to  comparative  vassalage.  South 
America,  Southern  and  Western  Europe,  Asia,  Af 
rica,  and,  in  short,  all  countries  having  barbarous 
and  tyrannical  governments,  furnish  abundant  proof 
of  this.  We  look  to  them  in  vain  for  comfortable 
dwellings,  beautiful  fields,  good  roads,, well  sup 
plied  markets,  for  churches,  schools,  hospitals,  and 
all  the  nameless  productions  of  well  directed  in 
dustry. 

Political  insecurity  is  another,  yet  more  striking 
feature,  of  slave-holding  states.  It  is  always  unsafe 
to  do  wrong.  And  where  one  part  of  society  is 


EFFECTS   OF   SLAYEKT.  119 

smarting  under  the  lash,  and  goaded  to  desperation 
by  the  loss  of  all  its  civil  rights,  we  may  well  anti 
cipate,  that  the  other  part  will  feel  diminished  con 
fidence  in  their  own  political  safety.  Quiet  is  in 
compatible  with  outrage.  A  consciousness  of  guilt — 
of  the  wrongs  he  has  inflicted — makes  the  slave 
holder  more  timid  than  other  men.  He  fears  the 
African,  because  he  knows  what  reason  there  is  for 
retaliation.  "  The  wicked  flee  when  no  man  pursu- 
eth ;  but  the  righteous  are  bold  as  a  lion."  It  is 
not  the  ordinary  depravity  of  human  nature  that 
slave-holders  have  to  dread;  they  could  guard 
against  that,  as  other  communities  do.  But  they 
well  know,  that  the  usual  safeguards  of  society  are 
not  enough  for  that  superadded  danger,  which 
springs  from  oppression.  This  accounts  for  the  fear 
of  insurrection,  so  prevalent  in  all  slave-holding 
states.  People,  wronged  and  degraded,  are  very 
likely  to  seek  redress,  and  nothing  but  extreme  igno 
rance,  on  the  part  of  those  who  are  thus  treated,  can 
prevent  their  instant  self-emancipation.  They  might 
not  retaliate  upon  their  former  masters,  but  they 
could  not  fail  to  throw  off  the  fetters  of  slavery. 

Every  slave  state  is  pervaded  by  this  necessary 
inquietude  and  insecurity.  And,  as  a  consequence, 
we  perceive  everywhere  a  half  military  aspect. 
The  police  regulations,  the  customs  and  manners  of 
society,  and  the  tone  of  feeling,  have  a  martial  char 
acter.  The  arbitraments  of  such  a  people  are  not 
those  of  the  civil  courts ;  the  lash,  the  pistol,  and 


120  THE   HIGHER   LAW. 

the  bowie  knife,  more  commonly  decide  their  quar 
rels,  and  mete  out  what  they  term  justice.  Such 
"brutal,  uncivilized  practices,  are  inseparable  from 
slave  masters,  in  their  intercourse  with  each  other, 
because  they  are  forced  to  maintain  this  kind  of 
conduct  towards  their  slaves.  Slavery  knows  no 
law  but  the  law  of  force — brute  force — and  the 
master  has,  at  all  times,  to  evince  his  disposition 
and  ability  to  compel  the  slave  to  be  a  slave.  This 
necessity,  everywhere  existing  in  slave  states,  makes 
them  exceedingly  repulsive  to  freemen.  It  is  like 
spending  one's  life  in  a  military  camp ;  it  is  as  if 
civil  liberty  and  peace  were  banished  from  the 
world. 

There  is  yet  another  evil  connected  with  all  slave- 
holding  countries.  I  allude  to  their  inability  to  repel 
foreign  invasion.  It  is  true,  that  some  opposition 
may  be  made  to  hostile  forces,  but  the  military 
strength  of  a  slave  state  is  greatly  diminished,  be 
cause  slaves  are  not  only  not  available,  as  soldiers, 
but  require,  for  their  safe  keeping,  the  presence  of 
others,  who,  apart  from  the  danger  of  insurrection 
at  home,  might  be  employed  as  soldiers.  Slave 
holders  must  keep  up  a  sort  of  standing  army ;  the 
institution  demands  a  continual  guard,  however  un 
able  the  country  may  be  to  afford  it. 

Society  may  exist  in  such  a  country ;  there  may 
be  families  and  neighborhoods,  hamlets,  villages,  and 
cities.  These  are  not  absolute  impossibilities,  and 
yet,  from  the  very  nature  of  the  case,  they  must 


EFFECTS    OF   SLAVERY.  121 

exist  under  many  embarrassments,  and  in  a  much 
less  perfect  condition,  than  characterizes  them  in 
free  states.  In  the  first  place,  a  large  part  of  the 
citizens  are  socially  dead — non-existent.  This  wi 
dens  the  distance  between  actual  neighbors,  and 
cuts  off,  in  so  far,  all  the  advantages  of  association. 
In  the  city,  a  population  of  fifty  thousand  sinks  to 
half  that  number  —  throwing  upon  these  all  the 
cares,  and  but  half  the  advantages,  common  to  a 
city  twice  as  large.  The  same  is  true  of  villages, 
and  rural  districts.  Schools,  churches,  and  all 
things  depending  upon  association,  are  poorly  sup 
ported,  because  the  existence  of  caste  renders  so 
many  unavailable  for  social  enterprizes.  As  a  fur 
ther  illustration  of  this  extreme  weakness  of  slave- 
holding  communities,  we  may  notice  the  singular 
provision  of  our  Federal  Constitution.  Slaves  are 
not  men — no,  not  even  human  beings — but  in  or 
der  that  the  slave  states  might  not  be  wholly  out 
numbered  in  the  popular  branch  of  Congress,  it  was 
necessary  to  allow  every  five  slaves  to  count  as 
much  as  three  free  white  men.  This  gives  the  South 
an  advantage,  which  would  not  be  necessary,  if 
slavery  had  not  so  weakened  that  part  of  the  Union 
as  to  render  it  incapable  of  standing  upon  equal 
terms  with  the  free  states.  According  to  the  views 
maintained  by  slave-holders,  they  might  just  as  well 
have  made  their  cattle  and  horses  the  basis  of  Con 
gressional  representation.  But  the  free  states  saw 
the  weakness  of  the  slave-holding  states,  and 


122  THE  HIGHER  LAW. 

yielded,  on  the  principle  that  the  strong  ought  to 
bear  the  burdens  of  the  weak.  The  same  disordered 
and  enfeebled  condition  is  discoverable  at  every 
point,  in  the  history  and  circumstances  of  a  slave- 
holding  people. 

I  have  thus  briefly  surveyed  slavery,  and  its  ef 
fects.  The  reader  will  need  no  suggestion  as  to 
what  inferences  he  shall  draw  from  such  premises. 
If  civil  government  was  instituted  for  beneficent 
purposes,  it  certainly  must  be  horribly  perverted, 
before  it  can  occasion  the  enormous  abuses  which 
we  have  just  contemplated.  On  the  governed  and 
the  governors,  these  evils  fall  with  equal  certainty, 
and  almost  equal  severity.  The  one  are  robbed  by 
force,  the  other,  by  committing  the  robbery,  are 
doomed  to  still  greater  loss.  Of  the  two,  the  slave 
is  less  injured  than  his  master.  That  such  an  insti 
tution  has  any  claims  upon  mankind,  or  that,  for 
any  cause,  it  ought  to  be  exempted  from  the  most 
rigorous  opposition,  is  an  idea  too  absurd  to  be  en 
tertained  for  a  moment.  An  imaginary  self-inter 
est  may  blind  the  eyes  of  some,  and  the  common 
hallucination,  that  slavery  is  a  delicate  and  difficult 
affair  to  remove,  may  blind  the  eyes  of  others  ;  but 
the  essential  turpitude  and  folly  of  the  thing  will 
always  stamp  it  as  an  intolerable  evil. 


SLAVERY   A   CKIME.  123 


CHAPTER  X. 
SLAYEKY  A  CKIME 


IT  is  utterly  impossible  that  such  a  system  should 
be  recognized  as  a  Divine  institution.  It  tramples 
upon  every  law  of  God,  and  defeats  every  benevo 
lent  purpose  of  his  providence.  The  very  term 
slave,  implies  a  crime.  Such  a  relation,  of  one  hu 
man  being  to  another  human  being,  is  itself  evi 
dence  of  guilt ;  it  implies  the  subversion  of  rights, 
which  God  has  made  inalienable,  and  which  no  one 
but  himself  may  innocently  revoke  or  annul. 

On  this  ground  we  rest.  -Here  the  anti-slave 
ry  cause  finds  its  ample  and  eternal  justification. 
Crime  admits  of  no  defence.  The  higher  law  not 
only  allows,  but  compels  every  man  to  seek  the 
destruction  of  vice.  Does  any  one  pretend  to  the 
contrary  ?  Is  it  not  a  conceded  fact,  that  both 
human  and  Divine  laws  require  the  extirpation  of 
all  wrong,  or  rather,  abstinence  from  all  wrong? 
There  is  no  denial  of  this,  except  by  resorting  to 
downright  atheism.  But  some  allege  that  slavery 
is  not,  upon  the  whole,  an  evil,  much  less  a  crime  ; 
and  this  allegation  is  considered  sufficient  to  silence 


124  THE   HIGHER   LAW. 

both  the  accusations  of  conscience,  and  the  reproofs 
of  an  indignant  Christian  public.  Who  is  ignorant 
of  such  sophistry  ?  Who  has  not  witnessed  it  again 
and  again,  in  every  moral  conflict  ?  It  is  nothing 
more  than  a  simple  disturbance  of  established  prin 
ciples,  in  order  to  avoid  the  consequences  which 
flow  from  them.  It  is  a  cheat  of  wicked  men, 
to  escape  detection.  The  villain  who  keeps  false 
weights,  or  false  measures,  acts  on  exactly  the  same 
plan.  He  appears  to  do  right,  only  because  the 
rule,  by  which  right  and  wrong  are  determined, 
has  been  intentionally  perverted — he  gives  full 
weight  according  to  his  scales,  but  not  according  to 
the  scales  of  an  honest  man.  Let  the  tyrant — the 
oppressor — the  slave-holder — define  justice,  and 
slave-holding  ceases  to  be  unjust.  It  would  be  folly 
to  dispute  against  the  rectitude  of  slavery,  if  we 
acknowledged  the  authority  of  such  ethics. 

Slavery  stands  forth  as  a  crime  only  when  tried 
by  an  incorruptible  rule.  The  law  of  God,  in  reve 
lation  and  in  nature,  fixes  its  character  beyond  the 
possibility  of  mistake.  There  either  is  no  wrong, 
or  slavery  is  wrong — all  wrong — most  criminally 
and  palpably  wrong.  Make  expedience,  or  selfish 
ness,  or  lust,  or  power,  the  test  of  rectitude,  and 
slavery  is  at  once  established  as  a  righteous  prac 
tice  ;  but  not  slavery  alone,  for  pride,  extravagance, 
theft,  dueling,  and  murder,  are  sanctioned  by  the 
same  authority.  When  we  depart  from  the  word 
of  God,  and  from  that  instinctive  sense  of  right 


SLAVEEY   A   CRIME.  -125 

which  characterizes  man  as  a  rational  being,  there 
is  no  longer  any  restraint  upon  conduct.  "Moral 
distinctions  cease,  and  custom,  irrespective  of  right 
or  wrong,  becomes  the  only  acknowledged  standard 
of  duty. 

To  such  fearful  lengths  must  they  go,  who  either 
hold  slaves  or  approve  of  slave-holding.  It  would 
be  too  much  to  avow  respect  for  such  an  enormity. 
The  evil  must  be  disguised,  or  it  cannot  be  endured. 
Even  the  most  wicked,  no  less  than  novices  in  crime, 
demand  something  in  the  shape  of  justification — 
they  must  have  an  opiate  to  soothe  the  pangs  of 
remorse,  and  prevent  the  entire  loss  of  self-respect. 
In  its  naked  character  of  sin,  slavery  finds  little  or  no 
countenance  ;  the  shameless  and  abandoned  atheist 
may  possibly  work  himself  up  to  such  madness  as 
would  sanction  it,  per  se,  for  he  glories  in  his  shame, 
and  purposely  reverses  all  natural  sentiments  of 
right.  But  to  man,  as  he  commonly  meets  us — to 
man,  without  any  studied  perversion  of  his  judg 
ment  or  instincts  —  to  man,  especially,  enlightened 
by  the  word  of  God — slavery  is  unendurable,  be 
cause  it  is  slavery.  The  word  is  odious  ;  it  bespeaks 
outrage  and  wrong  of  no  ordinary  degree.  Tlrere  is 
an  undefinable  repugnance  to  every  thing  compre 
hended  in  the  term.  It  is  like  the  word  murder — 
a  word  which  expresses  only  horrible  and  revolting 
ideas — a  word  which  has  no  associations  that  can 
please,  or  were  ever  designed  to  please.  This  word 


126,  THE   HIGHER   LAW. 

slavery  has  in  it  nothing  that  humanity  can  ap 
prove — nothing  against  which  it  does  not  instantly 
revolt ;  and  there  is,  therefore,  no  way  for  one  man 
to  own  another  man  as  a  slave.  Manhood  and  sla 
very  can  never  coalesce.  The  two  are  opposites, 
eternal  and  irreconcilable.  And  it  is  only  by  means 
of  deception  that  they  are  ever  made  to  have  the 
appearance  of  harmonizing.  Men  adopt  false  no 
tions  of  right,  and  then  acquit  themselves  of  all 
blame  in  robbing  their  fellow  men  of  humanity.  In 
this  way  deeds  are  done  that  would  never  be  toler 
ated,  if  the  true  principles  of  morals  were  suffered 
to  be  applied  to  them.  No  man  was  ever  the  apol 
ogist  of  slavery,  except  as  modified  in  the  manner 
we  have  now  suggested. 

Though  slavery  is  a  crime,  and  must  involve  all 
concerned  in  it  in  guilt,  we  do  not  affirm  that  the 
form  of  slavery  must  always  be  accompanied  by  the 
spirit.  The  shadow  may  be  where  the  substance  is 
not.  A  bad  law  among  a  good  people  becomes  a 
dead  letter.  Thus  Washington  and  Jefferson — the 
most  distinguished  of  patriots — -were  slave-holders 
only  in  name.  Born  amid  slavery,  and  connected 
with  it,  not  voluntarily  but  involuntarily,  they  con 
tracted  no  fellowship  or  respect  for  the  system,  and 
did  what  they  could  for  its  subversion.  There  are, 
undoubtedly,  thousands  now  connected  with  sla 
very  who  abhor  the  institution,  and  would  gladly 
break  away  from  its  chains.  Such  are  not  to  be 


SLAVERY   A   CRIME.  127 

classed  with  ordinary  slave-holders,  for  with  them 
slave-holding  is  merely  a  nominal  thing,  and  if  all 
were  like  them  it  wonld  soon  be  abolished. 

While  we  make  this  concession  cheerfully,  in 
view  of  special  cases,  it  by  no  means  follows  that 
such  an  apology  is  generally  applicable.  The  most 
who  hold  slaves,  hold  them  intentionally  and  from 
choice.  They  approve  of  the  system,  and  would 
gladly  perpetuate  it  forever.  With  these,  as  with 
other  culprits,  reason  and  reproof  are  too  apt  to  be 
useless ;  their  heart  is  in  the  transgression,  and  to 
admonish  them  is  to  "cast  pearls  before  swine." 
At  first  they  may  have  had  no  relish  for  slave-hold 
ing,  but  as  the  practice  of  vice  too  commonly  gen 
erates  the  love  of  vice,  they  are  found  at  last 
warmly  attached  to  what  an  upright  and  uncontam- 
inated  mind  must  always  view  with  abhorrence. 
Slavery  is  contrary  to  the  instincts  of  humanity — • 
it  contravenes  the  common  sense,  the  obvious  equal 
ity  of  natural  rights,  and  the  moral  feelings  which 
belong  to  the  race.  Nor  can  it  ever  be  viewed  as 
right,  till  the  blindness  induced  by  sin  has  dimned 
the  sight  and  betrayed  the  judgment. 

Slavery,  considered  as  a  crime,  is  necessarily  ab 
horred.  Human  nature  has  never  yet  attained  so 
desperate  a  stage  of  corruption  as  to  hate  unmixed 
good,  or  to  love  unmixed  evil.  We  can  call  good 
evil,  and  hate  it ;  or  evil  good,  and  love  it ;  but  we 
cannot  hate  the  one  and  love  the  other,  by  itself 
alone.  Hence,  all  approbation  of  slavery  implies 


128  THE   HIGHEK   LAW. 

deception ;  the  individual  has  voluntarily  brought 
upon  himself  this  blindness,  or  it  has  been  caused 
involuntarily  by  the  circumstances  in  which  he  has 
been  placed ;  in  either  case,  the  immutability  of 
constitutional  principles  is  maintained,  and  virtue 
vindicated.  It  must  be  shown  to  be  right  to  en 
slave  men,  or  men — so  God  has  made  them — must 
abominate  slavery. 


APOLOGIES   FOE   SLAVERY.  129 


CHAPTER   XI. 
APOLOGIES    FOE    SLAVERY 


As  intimated  in  the  foregoing  chapter,  slavery 
cannot  stand  alone — its  essential  wickedness  makes 
it  repulsive  to  all  enlightened  men.  It  is  obvious 
that  nothing  but  the  unimportant  circumstance  of 
color,  prevents  the  extension  of  the  system  to  the 
utmost  limit  of  power.  And  how  long  such  a 
feeble  barrier  will  be  able  to  resist  the  encroach 
ments  of  tyranny,  must  be  very  uncertain  in  any 
given  case,  since  might,  and  not  right,  is  the  rule  of 
progress.  The  possibility  of  a  wider  application  of 
the  slave-holding  principle,  is  not  simply  a  theoreti 
cal  idea ;  it  is  already  realized  in  Russia,  in  most 
Asiatic  countries,  and  in  Africa.  The  slavery  of 
these  countries  has  no  relation  to  color,  for  the 
master  and  his  slave  are  generally  of  the  same 
complexion.  In  these  nations,  slavery  itself  consti 
tutes  a  caste,  without  the  trifling  accident  of  color. 
This  is  also  true  of  the  slavery  of  the  ancients. 
And  if  the  disposition  to  enslave  has,  in  other  ages 
and  nations,  been  exercised  on  those  of  kindred 


130  THE    HIGHER   LAW. 

blood,  we  have  reason  to  apprehend  that  the  same 
may  occur  in  our  own  country  at  some  future  time. 
Thus  the  institution  comes  home  to  every  man's 
personal  feelings,  and  menaces  him  with  a  doom  as 
wretched  as  that  now  inflicted  on  the  black  man. 
The  wrhite  man  is  secured  only  by  the  color  of  his 
skin,  and  how  long  that  will  protect  him  he  cannot 
tell.  He,  therefore,  sees  himself  in  remote,  if  not 
in  immediate  danger,  and  the  instinct  of  self-pres 
ervation  renders  him  an  enemy  of  slavery. 

The  honest  fears,  as  well  as  moral  repugnance, 
which  cultivated  men  naturally  entertain  towards 
the  system,  have  led  its  abettors  to  put  forth  a  show 
of  defence.  But  from  first  to  last,  not  one  argu 
ment  has  transpired,  that  does  not  make  tenfold 
more  against  the  system  than  for  it.  I  shall  not 
trouble  the  reader  with  a  specific  and  formal  refu 
tation  of  all  the  various  sophistries  that  have  been 
employed  in  defence  of  the  institution  :  it  is  enough 
that  we  select  one  or  two  as  a  sample  of  the  whole. 

Probably  the  favorite  idea,  that  the  negro  race  is 
stamped  with  inferiority,  contains  as  much  real  ar 
gument  in  support  of  slavery,  as  any  thing  alleged 
by  its  advocates.  But  this,  to  have  the  slightest 
effect,  must  be  carried  to  the  extent  of  denying  the 
humanity  of  negroes  • — an  extent  reached,  to  be  sure, 
by  the  slave  system,  in  its  practical  treatment  of 
the  slave,  but  never  in  its  laws.  The  slave  code 
recognizes  the  elements  of  man  in  the  negro,  and 
hence  takes  pains  to  extinguish  those  elements.  The 


APOLOGIES   FOR   SLAVERY.  131 

laws  against  slaves  are  evidently  not  laws  against 
brutes,  nationality  and  manhood  are  always  im 
plied  in  the  exactions  imposed  on  the  negro,  and  he 
is  required  not  to  exercise  these  qualities  of  his  na 
ture  further  or  otherwise  than  may  promote  the 
interest  of  his  master.  In  short,  the  law,  finding 
the  negro,  unfortunately,  a  man,  bids  him  divest 
himself  of  manhood,  as  far  as  he  conveniently  can, 
and  identify  himself  with  the  brute.  This  contra 
diction,  then,  everywhere  appears  among  slave-hold 
ers  :  they  regard  the  negro  as  man,  and  not  man. 
How  they  can  reconcile  the  contradiction,  the  world 
has  yet  to  learn.  If  we  admit  the  humanity  of  the 
negro,  all  attempts  to  defend  slavery  sink  at  once 
into  contempt.  His  very  weakness  and  dullness 
become  his  protection,  among  all  honorable  men. 
He  stands  exempted  from  abuse  by  the  same  law 
which  exempts  women  and  children,  the  sick  and 
the  lame,  the  aged  and  the  insane,  from  injury. 
Their  want  of  equal  strength  has  made  it  dishonora 
ble  in  the  extreme,  to  prey  upon  them,  or  even  not 
to  defend  them  to  the  utmost  of  our  power.  If  the 
negro  is  really  inferior  to  the  w^hite  man,  either 
mentally  or  physically,  how  despicable  in  us  to  take 
advantage  of  this,  his  weakness,  and  strip  him  of 
all  his  God-given  rights !  But  the  assumption  of 
inferiority  is  altogether  gratuitous  and  improbable. 
If  he  is  inferior,  the  fact  remains  to  be  proved.  We 
will  not  insist  on  this,  however,  as,  if  it  could  be 


132  THE   HIGHER    LAW. 

made  out,  the  whole  effect  wronld  be  to  enhance  our 
obligations  to  the  colored  race,  and  to  throw  around 
them  a  tenderness  and  a  shield,  which,  as  equals, 
they  have  no  right  to  claim. 

Founded  on  this  idea  of  inferiority,  is  the  kindred 
notion,  that  the  negro  is  incapable  of  self-govern 
ment  and  of  self-maintenance.  Were  it  true  that 
he  is  too  imbecile  to  discharge  the  duties  of  citizen 
ship,  this  fact,  as  above  intimated,  would  only 
throw  him  more  fully  upon  the  charity  of  the  white 
man.  It  wrould  not  render  him  the  prey  of  his  more 
intelligent  brethren,  but  an  object  of  still  tenderer 
care. 

Another  argument,  deemed  of  great  weight,  is,  an 
alleged  forfeiture  of  all  right  to  freedom,  on  the  part 
of  the  slave.  Just  how  this  forfeiture  occurred,  we 
are  not  told,  but,  if  we  wTill  believe  slave-owners,  it 
most  certainly  exists.  The  vagueness  of  such  a  pre 
tension  might  well  excuse  us  from  all  attempts  to 
investigate  it ;  but  it  may  not  be  best  to  take  ad 
vantage  of  this  circumstance.  If  there  has  arisen 
any  loss  of  natural  rights  to  the  slave,  from  any 
source,  that  source  must  be  known.  Such  an  alien 
ation  could  only  be  the  effect  of  law,  and  of  law 
made  by  a  competent  authority.  But  wrhen  was 
such  a  law  made  by  the  God  of  nature  ?  Plainly, 
the  record  of  it  is  wanting.  Still,  if  a  law,  working 
such  disqualification,  be  allowed  to  exist,  when  and 
how  was  it  violated  ?  These  are  questions  all  im- 


APOLOGIES   FOR   SLAVERY.  133 

portant  to  the  argument,  and  if  neither  the  law  nor 
its  violation  can  be  shown  definitely,  the  alleged 
forfeiture  vanishes, 

"  Like  the  baseless  fabric  of  a  vision." 

Yet,  the  fact  of  such  a  loss  of  original  rights,  is  per 
tinaciously  maintained,  though  no  one  has  ever 
been  absurd  enough  to  profess  a  belief  in  the  neces 
sary  antecedents.  There  is,  indeed,  one  circum 
stance  which  seems  to  say,  that  the  existence  of 
such  a  law  is  an  admitted  fact,  namely,  the  curse 
pronounced  upon  Canaan,  Noah  said,  "  cursed  be 
Canaan ;  a  servant  of  servants  shall  he  be  unto  his 
brethren."  But  to  make  this  available,  it  must  be 
shown:  1.  That  the  negroes  are  descendants  of 
Canaan.  2.  That  this  passage  is  a  command  or  de 
cree,  and  not  a  mere  prediction.  3.  That  to  be  "  a 
servant  of  servants,"  means  chattel  slavery.  Until 
this  is  done,  the  passage  cannot  be  applied  to  the 
use  above  specified. 

The  only  further  argument  that  I  shall  notice,  is 
the  plenary  power  of  the  civil  law  to  dispose  of  the 
natural  rights  of  man.  It  is  claimed  that  what  the 
law  makes  property,  is  property — that  in  the  dis 
pensation  of  God,  to  civil  government  is  given  full 
authority  to  set  up  and  to  put  down,  to  destroy  or 
to  preserve  the  rights  of  man.  This  claim  makes 
negro  slavery  only  a  contingent  affair,  poised  wholly 
upon  the  will  of  the  dominant  power.  The  fallacy 
of  such  an  assumption  is  very  obvious.  If  human 
7 


134:  THE    HIGHER    LAW. 

law  may  thus  interfere  with  the  Divine  economy,  it 
may  do  any  one,  or  all,  of  fifty  other  things,  equally 
pernicious.  That  is,  the  power  which  can  set  aside, 
without  cause,  one  of  our  natural  rights,  can  set  them 
all  aside  without  cause.  This  would  be  to  make 
government,  not  the  guardian  and  conservator  of 
human  rights,  but  the  ruthless  destroyer  of  them. 
It  would  put  life  and  all  its  interests  under  the  con 
trol  of  an  irresponsible  and  unimprovable  institu 
tion.  However  consonant  with  justice  such  a  view 
of  government  may  be  to  those  who  hold  slaves,  it 
is  to  others  too  manifestly  absurd  to  require  the 
slightest  refutation.  Such  an  enormous  engine  of 
tyranny  and  oppression,  as  would  be  the  civil  law, 
if  this  were  its  true  exposition,  needs  only  to  be 
known  in  order  to  be  detested  by  all  upright  minds. 
Besides,  it  is  a  sheer  begging  of  the  question. 
There  is  no  evidence  that  human  law  has,  or  can 
have,  any  power  of  this  kind.  If  men  are  allowed 
to  assume  that  law  may  do  whatever  it  pleases,  or 
in  other  words,  that  law-makers  are  under  no  re 
straints,  then  indeed  the  case  is  settled.  But,  as  all 
men,  except  those  in  power,  deny  the  existence  of 
such  authority,  we  are  bound  to  reject  the  preten 
sion,  as  insult  added  to  injury  —  as  an  attempt  to 
cover  up  fraud  by  an  impudent  fiction. 

This  miserable  subterfuge,  which  constitutes  the 
very  animus  of  Hobbes'  political  writings,  has  lately 
been  revived  and  pressed  into  service  by  certain 


APOLOGIES   FOE   SLAVERY.  135 

divines,  who  favor  the  fugitive  slave  law.  Dr. 
Lord  may  be  taken  as  the  representative  of  this  class. 
His  doctrine  he  states  in  the  following  words  : 

"  In  regard  to  his  own  worship,  and  the  manner  in  which 
we  are  to  approach  Him,  the  Supreme  Governor  has  given 
full  and  minute  directions.  He  has  revealed  himself,  his 
attributes,  and  the  great  principles  of  his  government,  which 
constitute  the  doctrines  of  Christianity,  and  has  conferred 
upon  no  human  authority  the  right  to  interfere,  by  adding 
to  or  taking  from  them.  In  all  things  that  belong  to  him 
self,  God  exercises  sole  and  absolute  jurisdiction,  and  has,  in 
regard  to  them,  appointed  no  inferior  or  delegated  authority. 

"  Governments  have  jurisdiction  over  men  in  all  affairs 
which  belong  peculiarly  to  the  present  life ;  in  all  the  tem 
poral  relations  which  bind  societies,  communities,  and  fami 
lies  together,  in  respect  to  all  rights  of  person  and  property, 
and  their  enforcement  by  penalties.  General  rules  are  in 
deed  laid  down  in  the  Scriptures  for  the  regulation  of  human 
conduct,  but  God  has  ordained  the  'powers  that  be'  to 
appoint  their  own  municipal  laws,  to  regulate  and  enforce 
existing  relations,  and  to  execute  judgment  upon  offenders, 
under  such  form  of  administration  as  shall  be  suitable  to 
the  circumstances  of  the  people,  and  chosen  by  themselves. 

"We  take  the  ground,  that  the  action  of  civil  govern 
ments,  within  their  appropriate  jurisdiction,  is  final  and 
conclusive  upon  the  citizen:  and  that  to  plead  a  higher 
law  to  justify  disobedience  to  a  human  law,  the  subject 
matter  of  which  is  within  the  cognizance  of  the  State,  is  to 
reject  the  authority  of  God  himself,  who  has  committed  to 
governments  the  power  and  authority  which  they  exercise 
in  civil  affairs." 


136  THE    HIGHER    LAW. 

These  extracts  contain  two  assumptions.  1.  That 
the  supremacy  of  the  Divine  law  is  confined  to 
things  purely  religious,  or  what  relates  directly  to 
the  worship  and  service  of  God  himself.  2.  That 
governments  have,  in  their  particular  sphere,  unre 
stricted  authority  over  men.  Both  assumptions  are 
false,  as  may  be  easily  shown.  In  reference  to  the 
first,  it  is  sufficient  to  say  that  there  is  no  evidence 
whatever  of  any  such  limitation  of  the  Divine  su 
premacy.  It  is  indeed  true,  that  the  law  of  God  is 
supreme  in  matters  of  worship,  but  this  is  not  the 
whole  truth,  for  his  law  has  the  same  supremacy  in 
relation  to  every  thing  else.  The  second  position  is 
equally  untenable.  The  simple  fact  that  civil  gov 
ernment  is  a  Divine  institution,  does  not  in  the  least 
prove  that  there  is  no  restriction  upon  it.  Govern 
ments  are  not  left  to  do  right  or  wrong,  just  as  they 
may  choose,  but  they  are  bound  to  do  right,  and 
only  right.  They  may  do  wrong,  but  they  must  do 
it  on  their  own  authority,  for  God  never  gives  au 
thority  to  do  wrong.  Hence,  if  governments  do 
wrong  they  do  it  on  their  own  responsibility,  and 
without  that  authority  which  renders  their  acts  ob 
ligatory  when  they  do  right.  The  right  to  determine 
what  is  the  character  of  governmental  requirements, 
is  always  with  the  individual,  and  not  with  the 
government.  God  requires  man  always  to  do  right, 
and  if  all  the  governments  of  the  earth  should  com 
bine  to  force  him  to  sin,  he  is  bound  to  resist  them, 
even  unto  death.  It  is  a  most  ridiculous  supposi- 


APOLOGIES   FOR   SLAVERY.  137 

tion,  that  God  should  command  us  "  to  do  to  others 
as  we  would  that  they  should  do  unto  us,"  and  then 
subject  us  to  the  authority  of  a  Congressional  decree 
which  exactly  reverses  his  own  command.  Dr. 
Lord's  hypothetical  distribution  of  supremacy,  is  a 
fiction  of  his  own  brain,  and  derives  not  the  slight 
est  support  from  Scripture,  or  from  common  sense. 
Such  reasoning  has  not  even  the  small  merit  of 
plausibility.  It  is  instinctively  rejected  by  every 
sound  mind.  Suppose  that  government,  to  which 
the  right  of  capital  punishment  clearly  appertains, 
should,  without  any  alleged  reason,  order  every  tenth 
citizen  to  be  hung,  would  any  man — -could  any 
man,  deem  it  his  duty  to  obey  such  a  command  ? 
Not  unless  he  was  willing  to  incur  the  guilt  of  mur 
der.  Thus,  in  spite  of  thrones,  are  governments 
held  in  check  by  the  higher  law  of  common  sense, 
as  well  as  by  revelation. 

I  have  now  given  a  specimen  of  the  reasons — if 
reasons  they  may  be  called — on  which  this  gigan 
tic  system  of  abuse  rests.  It  wrill  be  perceived  at 
once,  that  defence  is  utterly  impossible.  To  argue 
in  support  of  such  a  system  is  to  burlesque  it ;  the 
prudent  will  generally  choose  to  rest  their  cause  on 
prescription,  rather  than  venture  a  defence,  where 
every  argument  must  inevitably  be  a  mockery  of 
truth  and  common  sense.  This  was  seen  by  the 
celebrated  Montesquieu,  more  than  a  century  ago, 
and  long  before  any  effort  was  made  for  the  aboli- 


138  THE    HIGHER   LAW. 

tion  of  the  slave  trade.     This  eminent  author  prof 
fers  the  following  ironical  defence  of  the  system  : 

"  Were  I  to  vindicate  our  right  to  make  slaves  of  the  ne 
groes,  these  should  be  my  arguments : 

"The  Europeans,  having  extirpated  the  Americans,  were 
obliged  to  make  slaves  of  the  Africans,  for  clearing  such 
vast  tracts  of  land. 

"  Sugar  would  be  too  dear,  if  the  plants  which  produce 
it  were  cultivated  by  any  other  than  slaves. 

"  These  creatures  are  all  over  black,  and  with  such  a  flat 
nose,  that  they  can  scarcely  be  pitied. 

"  It  is  hardly  to  be  believed  that  God,  who  is  a  wise  be 
ing,  should  place  a  soul,  especially  a  good  soul,  in  such  a 
black,  ugly  body. 

"  It  is  so  natural  to  look  upon  color  as  the  criterion  of  hu 
man  nature,  that  the  Asiatics,  among  whom  eunuchs  are 
employed,  always  deprive  the  blacks  of  their  resemblance 
to  us,  by  a  more  opprobrious  distinction. 

"  The  color  of  the  skin  may  be  determined  by  that  of  the 
hair,  which,  among  the  Egyptians,  the  best  philosophers  in 
the  world,  was  of  such  importance,  that  they  put  to  death 
all  the  red  haired  men  who  fell  into  their  hands. 

"  The  negroes  prefer  a  glass  necklace  to  that  gold  which 
polite  nations  so  highly  value:  can  there  be  a  greater  proof 
of  their  wanting  common  sense  ? 

"  It  is  impossible  for  us  to  suppose  these  creatures  to  be 
men,  because,  allowing  them  to  be  men,  a  suspicion  would 
follow,  that  we  ourselves  are  not  Christians. 

"  Weak  minds  exaggerate  too  much  the  wrong  done  to 
the  Africans.  For  were  the  case  as  they  state  it,  would  the 
European  powers,  who  make  so  many  needless  conveniions 


APOLOGIES   FOR   SLAVERY.  139 

among  themselves,  have  failed  to  make  a  general  one  in  be 
half  of  humanity  and  compassion?" — Spirit  of  Laws:  b. 
15,  ch.  5. 

A  zealous  and  able  advocate  of  slavery  might 
make  a  less  ludicrous  defence,  but  he  could  not 
make  a  more  just  and  truthful  one,  because  vice 
cannot  be  defended. 


140  THE   HIGHKR   LAW. 


CHAPTER  XII. 

GOYEENMENT  AM)  EELIGION  SU^YER- 
SIYE  OF  SLAYEEY. 


I  HAVE  shown  that  civil  government  and  Chris 
tianity  are  incompatible  with  slavery ;  my  object 
now  is,  to  show  that  the  obligation  to  maintain  these 
institutions,  is  an  obligation  to  extirpate  slavery. 
The  simple  fact  of  incompatibility,  does,  in  itself, 
ensure  the  destruction  of  slavery,  for  government 
and  religion  cannot  co-exist  with  this  fearful  antag 
onist  principle.  But  the  duty  of  extending  the 
former,  necessarily  inhibits  and  excludes  the  latter. 
It  brings  opposite  elements  into  conflict,  and  ren 
ders  it  indispensable  that  wrong  should  give  place 
to  right.  The  obligation  to  maintain  government, 
is  an  obligation  to  maintain  the  rights  of  the  gov 
erned.  Slavery  and  government  are,  therefore, 
inimical.  But,  it  may  be  said,  that  slavery  implies 
government,  and  we  concede  the  fact,  although  the 
concession  amounts  to  nothing.  Such  government 
as  slavery  implies,  is  a  curse,  and  not  a  blessing ; 
but  the  government  which  God  has  ordained,  and 
which  alone  is  lawful,  is  a  blessing,  and  not  a  curse. 


GOVERNMENT   AND   RELIGION,    &C.  141 

Its  design  is  to  uphold  the  natural  rights  of  man,  and 
especially  to  protect  the  weaker  members  of  society 
against  injuries  from  those  who  are  stronger,  or  vi 
ciously  disposed.  This  obvious  intent  of  civil  law, 
is  wholly  lost  sight  of,  in  the  infamous  system  of  sla 
very.  Instead  of  conserving  the  liberty  of  the  Afri 
can,  government  robs  him  of  every  vestige  of  natural 
or  acquired  right,  and  dooms  to  the  most  abject  servi 
tude,  both  him  and  his  posterity,  down  to  the  latest 
generation.  It  is  not  possible  for  a  beneficent 
institution  to  inflict  such  a  gross  outrage  as  this. 
And  we  are  constained  to  hold  the  government  ad 
ministered  by  slave-holders,  as  mere  tyranny.  It  is 
not  government,  in  any  proper  sense  of  the  term ; 
it  is  tyrannical  usurpation,  operating  where,  and 
only  where,  government  has  been  overthrown. 

The  extirpation  of  slavery  is,  then,  not  optional 
with  patriotism  ;  it  is  a  work  that  must  be  taken  in 
hand  by  all  who  would  preserve  the  existence  of 
civil  government,  and  particularly  by  all  those  who 
aim  to  extend  the  blessings  of  social  order.  Ac 
cordingly,  we  find  all  upheavings  of  the  masses  —  all 
political  revolution  and  resistance  to  governmental 
abuses,  connected  with  a  recognition  of  original  and 
imprescriptible  rights.  Men  feel  that  they  should 
be  treated  as  men;  and  because  they  are  not  so 
treated,  they  renounce  and  crush — but  not  so  fre 
quently  as  they  should — the  iniquitous  usurpation 
of  tyrants.  All  this  is  but  an  instinctive  yearning 
for  a  good  which  civil  establishments  ought  always 
T* 


142  THE   HIGHER   LAW. 

to  afford,  but  which  is  too  often  prevented  by  wicked 
men,  who  prostitute  them  to  their  own  aggrandize 
ment. 

To  charge  those  who  oppose  slavery  with  being 
enemies  of  government,  and  with  anarchical  de 
signs,  is  the  grossest  injustice.  Tyranny  is  the  only 
anarchy,  and  tyrants  are  the  only  anarchists.  These 
break  down  civil  law,  and  subvert  government ; 
these,  by  the  mere  wantonness  of  power,  strip  men 
of  their  rights,  without  even  the  forms  of  justice. 
For  slave-holders  and  other  tyrants  to  complain  of 
seditious  or  treasonable  conduct,  on  the  part  of  anti- 
slavery  men,  is  most  ridiculous  affectation — most 
insulting  malignity.  The  old  fable  says,  that  the 
wolf  and  the  lamb  were  drinking  together,  out  of 
the  same  stream,  but  the  lamb,  though  farthest 
down  the  stream,  was  accused  by  the  wolf,  of  roil 
ing  the  water!  Surely,  nothing  but  this  wolfish 
propensity  can  induce  any  one  to  charge  civil  dis 
turbance  upon  those  who  only  seek  to  break  the 
chains  of  the  slave,  and  restore  to  him  his  inaliena 
ble  rights.  The  real  disturber  of  the  peace,  is  he 
who  took  away  these  rights — not  he  that  brings 
them  back.  Humanity  has  a  right  to  replevy  the 
sacred  treasure  of  personal  liberty,  and  none  but 
those  who  have  feloniously  seized  it,  will  ever  com 
plain. 

Every  attempt  to  administer  justice  in  a  slave 
state,  must  stand  rebuked  by  those  mute,  uncom 
plaining  objects,  who  have  been  struck  dumb  by 


GOVERNMENT   AND   RELIGION,    <fcC.  143 

one  vast  act  of  oppression.  "Why  shall  there  be 
courts  of  justice  among  those  who  have  scouted  all 
justice  ?  "  Thou  that  preachest  a  man  should  not 
steal,  dost  thou  steal  ?"  As  slavery  is  the  vilest  of 
robbery,  and  the  most  enormous  injustice  which 
man  can  possibly  commit,  it  would  seem  that  those 
who  practice  it  should  never  profess  attachment  to 
the  principles  of  equity,  or  evince  any  respect  for 
those  rules  by  which  justice  is  administered  among 
upright  men. 

But  however  great  may  be  the  antagonism  between 
government  and  slavery,  it  is  much  less  than  that 
between  religion  and  slavery.  The  whole  substance 
of  religion  is  utterly  destroyed  by  slavery ;  not  a 
single  virtue  does  it  leave  untouched.  Christianity, 
for  instance,  teaches  justice  and  even  kindness 
towards  all  men,  not  excepting  our  enemies ;  but 
slavery  reverses  this,  by  denying  either  justice  or 
kindness  to  the  colored  man.  Slavery  strips  him  of 
his  manhood,  and  not  only  converts  him  into  a 
brute,  but  fixes  his  market  value,  and  holds  him  for 
sale  with  other  articles  of  commerce.  No  apology 
can  be  made  for  such  an  audacious  crime — none 
was  ever  attempted  that  did  not  enhance  the  guilt 
of  him  who  made  it.  The  usual  sophistries  with 
which  the  case  has  been  met,  have  had  too  much 
indulgence  shown  them.  Wrong  so  monstrous, 
is  always  premeditated,  and  to  defend  it,  is  to 
purposely  mislead.  In  like  manner  we  might 
adduce  every  virtue  enjoined  by  the  gospel,  and  thfc 


14:4:  THE    HIGHER   LAW. 

system  of  slavery  would  show  itself  the  implacable 
enemy  of  them  all.  This  is  emphatically  true  of 
those  virtues  which,  from  their  being  less  spiritual, 
are  more  akin  to  the  duties  enjoined  by  the  civil 
law ;  but  the  difference  is  still  greater  in  the  high 
department  of  faith,  where  benevolence  and  spiritu 
ality  give  such  vast  expansion  to  active  goodness. 
Naked  justice  and  simple  kindness  fall  almost  in 
finitely  below  the  spotless  sanctity  and  burning 
charity  peculiar  to  the  kingdom  of  God.  Now,  if 
slavery  is  the  very  opposite  of  common  justice,  how 
satanical  must  it  appear,  when  contrasted  with  this 
exalted  purity !  The  man,  whose  heart  is  pervaded 
by  this  heavenly  virtue,  is  so  far  from  enslaving  his 
brother  man,  that  he  would  himself  wear  the  chains, 
rather  than  put  them  on  the  negro. 

"  I  would  not  have  a  slave  to  till  my  ground, 

T  o  carry  me,  to  fan  me  while  I  sleep, 

And  tremble  when  I  wake,  for  all  the  wealth 

That  sinews,  bought  and  sold,  have  ever  earned. 

No  :  dear  as  freedom  is,  and  in  my  heart's 

Just  estimation  prized  above  all  price, 

I  had  much  rather  be  myself  the  slave, 

And  wear  the  bonds,  than  fasten  them  on  him." — Task. 

A  religion  that  breathes  such  moral  excellence, 
can  never  have  any  affinity  with  slavery — can  nei 
ther  adopt  it,  nor  consecrate  it,  nor  tolerate  it. 
Such  light  can  have  no  fellowship  with  such  dark 
ness.  And  the  duty  of  spreading  this  religion,  in- 
voles  unceasing  warfare  against  the  slave  system. 
"We  cannot  teach  men  to  keep  the  law  of  God,  without 
teaching  them  to  break  the  slave  law.  Nor  may 


GOVERNMENT   AND   EELIGION,    &C.  145 

we  teacli  them  merely  to  break  the  slave  law  — 
they  must  be  made  to  abhor  it,  and  fly  from  it  as 
they  would  from  hell  itself.  Religion  is,  in  short, 
a  total  disqualification  for  slave-holding;  it  inca 
pacitates  men  for  such  wickedness ;  their  natures 
become  too  refined,  too  upright,  for  such  enormi 
ties.  As  slavery  is  vice,  its  extirpation  must  result 
from  the  prevalence  of  virtue — that  is,  a  pure  re 
ligion.  ~No  other  effect  can  be  anticipated,  for  no 
other  is  possible — religion  must  either  extirpate  sin, 
or  itself  be  extirpated  by  sin.  All  Christians  are, 
therefore,  necessarily  opposed  to  slavery,  and,  so  far 
as  they  have  any  evangelical  goodness,  actively  en 
gaged  in  the  work  of  emancipation.  And  the  war 
now  going  on  against  slavery,  is  only  the  kingdom  of 
Christ  arraying  itself  against  antichrist. 


146  THE    HIGHER    LAW. 


CHAPTER   XIII. 

CAPACITY  OF  SLATES  FOE  CIVIL  GOV 
ERNMENT. 


HAVING  noticed  (chap,  xi.)  the  usual  objections  to 
emancipation,  particularly  those  founded  on  the 
alleged  inferiority  of  the  African  race,  and  on  their 
supposed  incapacity  for  self-government,  I  shall 
now  attempt  to  show,  not  as  in  the  aforesaid  chap 
ter,  that  these  things,  if  true,  constitute  no  apology 
for  slavery — but  that  they  are  totally  false  assump 
tions.  Tyrants  have  always  assigned  as  the  reason 
for  their  usurptions,  that  the  people  were  incompe 
tent  to  govern  themselves.  This  charge  of  incom- 
petency  is  a  gross  and  willful  imposture.  It  is  a 
pretext  that  can  hardly  be  said  to  have  the  poor 
merit  of  plausibility.  What  great  strength  of  mind 
or  of  body  have  rulers  ever  exhibited  above  the 
people  whom  they  ruled  ?  Had  Nero  more  capa 
city  for  civil  government  than  any  other  man  in  the 
Roman  empire  ?  Or,  rather,  could  any  other  man 
in  Rome  or  out  of  Rome  have  governed  worse  ?  This 
course  of  reasoning  is  applicable  to  all  who  have 
swayed  the  rod  of  empire,  and  in  too  many  instances 


CAPACITY   OF   SLAVES,    &C.  147 

with  precisely  the  same  result.  Emperors,  kings, 
and  governors,  instead  of  being  wiser,  or  better,  or 
more  competent  in  any  respect  for  the  duties  of  gov 
ernment,  than  their  subjects,  have  too  generally  been 
notorious  for  depravity  and  imbecility — have  sunk 
far  below  the  average  level  of  virtue  in  their  own 
dominions,  and  proved  a  curse,  instead  of  blessing, 
to  those  whom  they  governed.  Why  then  this  idle 
talk  of  the  necessity,  of  superior  abilities  in  those 
wrho  govern?  And  why  affirm  so  unhesitatingly, 
that  even  the  lowest  in  the  scale  of  intelligence  and 
virtue  are  not  capable  of  government  ?  Rulers 
have  generally  been  quite  as  ignorant  and  debased, 
as  the  people  from  among  whom  they  were  taken 
and  placed  in  authority.  The  idea  that  wisdom 
centres  in  public  authority,  or  in  men  who  are  acci 
dentally  at  the  head  of  political  affairs,  is  very  fool 
ish  ;  it  implies  a  total  ignorance  of  the  true  nature 
of  civil  government.  Office-holders,  whether  kings, 
or  governors,  or  legislators,  are  only  servants  of  the 
public,  and  have  no  other  means  of  becoming  capa 
ble  of  exercising  civil  authority,  than  have  those 
who  employ  them — those  who  give  them  all  their 
power.  The  people  are  proprietors,  under  God,  of 
civil  institutions,  and  it  is  extremely  absurd  to  sup 
pose  that  they  are  not  capable  of  managing  their 
own  affairs.  For  rulers  to  claim  superior  fitness,  is 
proof  of  dishonesty ;  it  shows  that  there  is  treachery, 
and  that  the  charge  of  incompetency  serves  only  to 
conceal  the  fraud. 


148  THE   HIGHEB   LAW. 

Ignorance  is  a  term  which  must  be  applied  to 
slaves  with  great  care.  The  slave  is  a  man,  and 
man  cannot  be  so  ignorant  as  to  be  incapable  of 
civil  government.  A  brute  is  thus  ignorant,  be 
cause  he  is  a  brute ;  God  did  not  give  him  the 
faculties  necessary  to  civil  order,  nor  can  he  ever 
acquire  them.  But  to  man,  these  faculties  are 
given  by  his  Creator  ;  and  they  belong  inalienably 
to  his  constitution.  He  has  these  powers  as  he  has 
life — not  by  education  and  custom,  but  by  the  hand 
of  God,  which  formed  him  a  rational  creature.  The 
attempt  to  put  him  in  the  category  of  brutes,  merely 
because  he  has  not  undergone  a  long  course  of  train 
ing  in  republican  forms,  is  either  a  very  stupid 
blunder,  or  a  dastardly  piece  of  injustice. 

But  it  may  be  said  that  slaves  are  illiterate,  and 
therefore  disqualified  for  civil  duties,  inasmuch  as 
such  duties  require  a  knowledge  of  written  law. 
This  argument  takes  for  granted  that  literature  is 
essential  to  virtue  ;  but  the  history  of  the  world 
shows  quite  the  contrary.  Many  who  could  not 
read,  have  proved  themselves  capable  of  the  noblest 
deeds,  while  many  others,  though  possessed  of  learn 
ing,  have  exhibited  nothing  but  meanness.  It  is 

o  /  O 

altogether  a  mistake  to  suppose  that  literature,  in 
any  shape  or  degree,  is  indispensable  to  freedom. 
As  well  might  we  deem  it  indispensable  to  the  diges 
tion  of  food,  or  the  circulation  of  the  blood.  Letters 
are  only  a  convenience,  invented  by  man,  but  liberty 
is  an  element  of  his  nature,  derived  from  the  Crea- 


CAPACITY    OF    SLAVES,    &C.  149 

ting  hand.  Not  to  have  the  former,  is  to  lack  an 
important  branch  of  education  ;  not  to  have  the 
latter,  is  to  be  less  than  man :  the  one  is  non-im 
provement;  the  other,  mutilation. 

With  like  inconsistency,  it  has  been  pretended 
that  freedom  can  be  conferred  only  by  degrees  — 
that  liberty  should  be  only  gradually  introduced 
among  the  oppressed.  We  might  waive  all  remarks 
here,  as  even  gradual  emancipation  is  never  pro 
posed  by  slave-holders.  But  the  question  has  its 
interest,  since  there  are  emancipationists  who  are 
horror  struck  at  the  thought  of  immediate  enfran 
chisement.  They  would  have  the  chains  of  the 
slave  broken,  link  by  link,  and  so  slowly  that  an 
age  would  hardly  suffice  to  liberate  him.  And  all 
this,  from  an  erroneous  notion  that  enduring  the 
misfortunes  and  abuses  of  a  vile  tyranny,  is  the  best 
preparation  for  liberty.  If  preparation  is  necessary, 
in  order  to  freedom,  most  certainly  it  will  have 
to  be  found  in  something  besides  chattel  slavery. 
How  can  the  complete  annihilation  of  political  rights 
and  immunities,  fit  people  for  the  proper  use  of  such 
rights  and  immunities  ?  As  well  put  out  a  man's 
eyes  to  help  his  vision,  or  cut  off  his  feet  to  quicken 
his  pace.  We  deny,  however,  that  any  preparation 
is  necessary.  Liberty  being  the  birth-right  of  man, 
the  natural  and  normal  condition  of  his  existence, 
all  the  preparation  he  needs  for  its  enjoyment  is 
born  with  him.  He  gets  his  fitness  for  liberty,  as 
he  gets  his  hands  and  his  feet — not  by  education. 


150  THE    HIGHEK   LAW. 

but  by  inheritance.  It  is  born  with  him,  and  con 
stitutes  a  part  of  his  being.  We  may  see  by  the 
family  relation,  what  is  demanded  in  the  weakest 
condition  of  human  nature.  Children  require  pa 
rental  control,  and  so  may  very  ignorant  adults ; 
but  there  is  nothing  in  the  government  of  a  family 
analogous  to  slavery.  ~No  child  is  subject  to  sale, 
no  right  which  can  safely  be  exercised  is  withheld, 
and  the  whole  course  of  discipline  and  restraint  is 
one  of  tenderness.  But  what  is  more,  the  disabili 
ties  of  children  are  temporary ;  as  soon  as  they 
attain  to  a  given  age,  the  law  confers  on  them 
whatever  was  withheld  during  minority.  If  the 
boon  of  citizenship  thus  inured  to  the  slave,  he 
would  have  all  the  preparation  for  liberty  which 
the  nature  of  man  can  be  supposed  to  require.  We 
do  not,  however,  regard  the  minority  of  children  as 
intended  merely  to  prepare  them  for  the  duties  and 
immunities  of  civil  life.  Their  physical  helpless 
ness,  which  for  several  years  is  such  that  they 
w^ould  perish,  if  left  to  themselves,  is  the  grand 
reason  why  they  are  placed  under  parental  care. 
Other  advantages  grow  out  of  this  dependence,  and 
the  child  doubtless  finds  in  the  family  authority 
milder  and  better  control  than  could  be  adminis 
tered  by  the  State. 

It  is  clear,  therefore,  that  the  gradual  emancipa 
tion  of  adults,  finds  no  support  from  the  gradual 
emancipation,  if  such  it  may  be  called,  of  children. 
The  latter  are  physically  and  mentally  incompe- 


CAPACITY   OF   SLAVES,    &C.  151 

tent  to  the  task  of  life ;  they  must  be  protected  and 
cherished  by  others,  till  nature  brings  them  to  suf 
ficient  maturity,  to  render  them  independent.  This 
maturity  the  adult  slave  has  already  gained,  and 
the  law  should  at  once  enfranchise  him.  There  is, 
moreover,  this  difference :  in  the  case  of  children, 
privileges  are  only  held  in  abeyance — not  extin 
guished.  The  child  is  an  heir,  is  as  fully  protected 
from  injury  as  the  adult,  and  no  right  can  be  taken 
from  him.  On  the  contrary,  the  rights  of  the  slave 
are  totally  destroyed,  and  this,  irrespective  of  age, 
or  physical  or  mental  condition. 

That  ignorant  people  are  not  fitted  for  self-gov 
ernment,  or  rather,  for  civil  freedom,  is  a  notion 
long  current  in  certain  quarters,  and  for  very  obvi 
ous  reasons.  It  is  the  interest  of  rulers  to  create 
this  impression,  that  their  services  may  be  the  more 
esteemed.  Such  a  plea  serves  well  as  an  excuse 
for  usurpation.  Dynasties  would  soon  tumble  into 
ruins,  but  for  this  aspersion  of  human  capacity. 
Were  it  understood  that  people — >any  people,  even 
the  most  ignorant — could  dispense  with  tyranny  and 
suffer  110  harm,  where  would  be  the  support  of  un 
righteous  authority?  Rulers  would  sink  into  ser 
vants  ;  they  would  govern  for  the  people,  and  not 
for  themselves.  This  deception  is  based,  in  part, 
on  the  idea  that  freedom  requires  unusual  ability. 
It  has  come  to  be  a  prevalent  opinion,  that  a  good 
government  is  fit  only  for  the  best  of  people — the 
most  wise,  intelligent  and  virtuous.  But  on  this 


152  THE    HIGHER    LAW. 

principle,  it  might  be  maintained  that  bad  children 
should  have  bad  parents,  or  that  sick  people  should 
have  worse  treatment  than  those  in  health.  Surely, 
if  a  difference  is  to  be  made,  humanity  requires  that 
the  burden  should  not  be  thrown  upon  the  weak— 
that  a  bad  government  should  not  be  inflicted  on 
those  who  have  the  least  skill  in  political  affairs. 
If  good  government  is  wanted  any  where,  it  is 
among  the  ignorant  and  the  vile.  The  end  of  civil 
institutions  is  protection ;  but  protection  oppresses 
no  one.  To  secure  the  rights  of  individuals,  in  a 
bad  state  of  society,  may  require  greater  efficiency 
and  care  in  government ;  yet,  this  can  never  be  a 
reason  for  tyranny,  because  tyranny  is  not  protec 
tion,  and,  therefore,  not  the  object  which  govern 
ment  has  in  view. 

Civil  law  is  to  man,  as  any  other  essential  want 
of  his  nature.  He  needs  government  just  as  he 
needs  food,  and  there  is  no  more  incapacity  in  him 
for  one  of  these  things  than  for  the  other ;  nor  is 
there  any  necessity  that  his  wants,  in  either  case, 
should  be  supplied  with  what  is  deteriorated  and 
vile.  He  can  endure  the  depravation  of  food,  quite 
as  well  as  the  depravation  of  government.  The 
whole  history  of  mankind  shows  that  tyranny  can 
evolve  nothing  but  tyranny  —  that  governmental 
evils  have  no  tendency  to  self-correction,  and  that 
the  elevation  of  the  slave  cannot  be  promoted  by 
even  his  temporary  subjection  to  despotism.  Op 
pression  may  lead  to  revolution,  and  often  does,  but 


CAPACITY   OF    SLAVES,    &C.  153 

it  has  not  the  slightest  power  to  develope  fitness  for 
liberty.  It  may  indeed  generate  a  deep  abhorrence 
of  tyranny,  and  thus  increase  the  love  of  freedom ; 
still,  as  this  abhorrence  and  this  love  are  instinc 
tive  traits  of  man,  they  scarcely  need  such  an  un 
natural  expansion.  The  desire  for  liberty,  like  the 
desire  for  justice,  or  food,  or  health,  is  naturally 
strong  enough,  and  nothing  is  gained  by  the  arti 
ficial  stimulus  consequent  upon  misgovernment. 
Political  freedom  is  only  political  justice,  and  all 
men  are  as  ready  for  this  description  of  justice,  as 
for  any  other.  It  will  be  as  harmless  to  give  them 
full  freedom,  as  it  would  be  to  give  them  full  light 
for  the  eye,  or  full  air  for  the  lungs,  or  full  pay  for 
honest  dues. 

The  following  remarks  are  so  pertinent  to  the 
general  question  now  under  consideration,  that  I 
cannot  deny  myself  the  pleasure  of  inserting  them. 

"  The  next  fallacy  is,  that  freedom  should  follow,  but 
never  lead,  a  true  civilization ;  that  it  is  the  crown  and  cap 
ital,  but  not  the  base.  It  is  an  axiom  with  us,  that  we, 
only,  are  fit  for  liberty.  It  seems  to  be  supposed  that  a 
despotism  has  some  secret  nourifhment  of  liberty  in  it, 
and  that  after  a  certain  time,  free  institutions  will  result 
from  it.  What  evidence  of  progress  have  we  in  China  and 
Japan?  Why  were  not  Persia  and  the  old  monarchies 
gradually  prepared  for  free  institutions  ?  Because  despot 
ism  dwarfs  men — necessarily  dwarfs  them,  and  lies  on 
them  as  a  blight  and  canker.  When  we  are  told,  therefore, 
to  wait  before  we  assist  other  nations,  let  us  inquire  what 


15-i  THE   HIGHER   LAW. 

we  are  waiting  upon?  We  are  waiting  until  despotism 
has  done  its  pei  feet  work — until  it  has  slain  the  hope  and 
vitality  of  the  oppressed.  Do  you  say  that  education  is  fa 
vored  by  despotism.  Yes,  and  let  China,  Austria,  and 
storied  Italy  answer  what  are  the  results  of  art,  literature 
and  scholarship  in  the  matter  of  emancipation.  The  study 
and  the  cell  make  the  artist  and  scholar  iree,  but  they  give 
him  liberty,  too  often  misused  to  the  oppression  of  his  fel 
lows.  They  are  not  apt  to  encourage  that  state  of  things 
which  interferes  with  their  seclusion.  Literature  and  art 
have  not  been  the  friends  of  liberty,  but  the  most  obsequi 
ous  servants  of  absolutism.  Nor  does  popular  education 
do  much  more.  It  may  make  only  a  race  of  curious  dream 
ers,  rather  than  of  energetic  men.  What  is  education  but 
a  tool,  which  depends  for  its  value  upon  the  hand  that  holds 
it?  Reading  and  writing  cannot  conjure  intelligence  into 
humanity  or  out  of  it.  Pigs  may  be  taught  to  read.  Edu 
cation  is  not  education  when  it  leaves  the  scholar  passive. 
The  old  schoolmen  were  only  elaborately  ignorant,  differing 
from  other  men  as  a  parrot  which  can  talk  differs  from  one 
which  cannot.  He  who  speaks  no  senseat  all  in  several 
languages,  will  pass  for  more  than  he  who  speaks  solid 
sense  in  only  one.  Popular  education  owes  its  value  to  a 
roused  intelligence.  Our  institutions  are  our  educators.  I 
heard  Kossuth  say,  when  he  meant  the  universal  people, 
the  university  of  the  people.  Yes,  freedom  is  that,  it  is  the 
university  of  the  people.  So  it  is  not  our  religious  educa 
tion  that  fosters  our  love  of  liberty,  but  it  is  liberty  which 
fosters  the  Church.  In  despotic  lands  is  religion  always 
begetting  freedom  ?  Is  the  bench  of  Bishops  in  England 
perpetually  presenting  schemes  of  progress  and  reform? 
Issachar  is  a  strong  ass,  bending  between  two  burdens — the 
taxing  State  and  the  grinding  Church.  In  America,  the 


CAPACITY    OF   SLAVES,    &C.  155 

clergy  are  free  and  preach  liberty,  because  the  spirit  of  the 
country  allows  it.  Liberty  is  the  first  interest  of  a  nation. 
It  sets  humanity  going,  and  keeps  it  going.  The  other  in 
fluences  are  regulating,  this  is  conservative.  The  prosper 
ity  of  this  country  is  owing  to  the  wonderful  activity  of 
human  faculties  here. 

"  What,  then,  ought  to  be  our  hop  e,  prayer  and  act  for 
other  nations?  While  they  are  content  with  death,  ought 
we  to  be  content  for  them?  While  we  acknowledge  that 
liberty  alone  is  the  life  of  the  race,  that  it,  only,  underlies 
and  inspires  prosperity — what  shall  we  do  and  say  ?  Is  the 
breaking  of  this  bastile  of  despotism  to  make  no  more  noise 
than  the  breaking  of  an  egg  for  breakfast?  Is  order  to  be 
purchased  at  every  price?  Are  nations  lying  like  lambs, 
and  tyrants  hanging  over  them  like  butchers,  to  excite  no 
word  and  no  act  from  us,  because  the  slaughter-house  is  not 
on  our  own  shores  ?  Nothing  but  liberty  can  save  a  nation 
from  a  broken  heart  and  moral  death.  We  must  expect 
disorder  from  the  resurrection  of  nations.  Poor,  old,  bed 
ridden  humanity  may  break  the  furniture  of  her  chamber 
when  she  begins  to  walk — when  she  escapes  from  the  nurses 
who  have  been  keeping  her  ill,  that  they  might  more  con 
veniently  consume  her  estate.  But  she  must  forth,  she  has 
a  right  to  walk,  although  every  step  should  be  an  earth 
quake, — although  she  tumble  over  thrones  and  privileges 
as  she  advances." — Rev.  II.  W.  BELLOWS,  (recent  lecture  at 
the  Tabernacle,  N.  Y.) 


156  THE    HIGHER   LAW. 


CHAPTER   XIV. 
THE   FUGITIVE   SLATE   LAW. 


THIS  law,  so  justly  offensive  to  the  free  states,  and 
so  exactly  in  harmony  with  the  slave  states,  is  only 
a  further  development  of  that  gigantic  system  of 
robbery,  which  the  federal  government  has  always 
tolerated,  and  often  encouraged.  It  was  natural 
that  slave-holders  should  wish  to  do  everywhere 
what  they  do  where  slavery  is  allowed,  and  hence, 
they  spare  no  pains  to  secure  the  passage  of  such 
laws,  by  Congress,  as  will  enable  them  to  recover 
fugitive  slaves  in  the  most  summary  manner.  In 
substance,  the  fugitive  slave  law  is  like  all  other 
slave  laws ;  it  is  characterized  by  the  same  total 
disregard  of  personal  rights  and  sheer  contempt  for 
humanity.  It  is  not  more  cruel  than  the  ordinary 
legislation  of  slave  states,  nor  is  it  less  so ;  and  had 
it  taken  place  in  slave  territory — had  its  operation 
been  confined  to  people  already  accustomed  to 
slave-holding  —  it  would  have  excited  no  unfavora 
ble  remark.  But  when  it  is  attempted  to  transfer 
a  portion  of  the  slave  law  to  free  states,  and  make 
it  operative  there,  nothing  but  the  most  absolute  co- 


THE   FUGITIVE   SLAVE    LAW.  157 

ercion  can  render  the  experiment  successful.     How 
far  such  coercion  is  available,  remains  to  be  seen. 

The  law  was  introduced  into  Congress  and  passed 
by  that  body,  on  the  basis  of  the  constitution.  The 
following  is  the  clause  011  which  this  master-piece 
of  legislation  rests : 

"  No  person  held  to  service  or  labor  in  <cme  state,  under 
the  laws  thereof,  escaping  into  another,  shall,  in  consequence 
of  any  law  or  regulation  therein,  be  discharged  from  such 
labor;  but  shall  be  delivered  up  on  claim  of  the  party  to 
whom  such  labor  or  service  may  be  due." — Const.  U.  £ 
A.:  art,  1,  sec.  2. 

Here  we  evidently  have  a  compromise.  The 
non-slave-holding  states  are  forbidden  to  make  any 
law  emancipating  such  slaves  as  nee  from  the  slave 
states.  But  for  this  protective  clause  in  the  consti 
tution,  the  free  states  would,  unquestionably,  have 
made  every  African  free  on  entering  their  limits. 
Whether  the  compromise  is,  in  itself,  a  violation  of 
human  rights,  and  whether  it  makes  the  general 
government,  to  all  intents  and  purposes,  a  slave- 
hoi  ling  power,  are  paints  on  which  there  is  some 
diiierenco  of  opinion.  From  the  circumstances  of 
the  case,  as  well  as  from  the  very  cautious  and  spar 
ing  reference  to  slavery  in  the  constitution,  I  judge 
that  there  was  no  intention  to  assume  the  guilt  or 
to  foster  the  institution  of  slavery.  Still,  all  men 
must  regret  the  existence  of  such  a  compromise,  as 
it  certainly  tolerates,  if  it  does  not  sanction  slavery. 
8 


158  THE   HIGHER   LAW. 

In  forming  a  confederacy  out  of  independent  states, 
part  of  them  averse  to  the  continuance  of  slavery 
and  part  otherwise,  it  became  necessary  to  make 
some  concessions  ;  but  philanthropists  have  always 
deplored  that  such  a  concession  as  this  was  de 
manded,  or  admitted.  It  was  purchasing  union  at 
too  costly  a  rate.  The  specific  objections  to  the  fugi 
tive  slave  law,  which  has  grown  out  of  this  unfor 
tunate  clause,  are  as  follows  : 

It  is  unconstitutional. 

That  the  constitution  gives  to  the  slave-holder  a 
right  to  recover  his  absconding  slave,  is  beyond  dis 
pute.  JSTo  state  may  annul  the  claim  of  the  master, 
or  prevent  his  seizing  his  slave  wherever  he  can  find 
him.  The  sympathies  of  freemen  are  held  in  check, 
so  far  as  to  refrain  from  all  emancipating  legislation 
in  aid  of  the  fugitive.  '  This  is  the  extent  of  the 
compromise,  and  thus  far  the  supervision  of  Con 
gress  might  lawfully  extend,  according  to  the  terms 
of  the  national  compact.  All  laws  for  the  emanci 
pation,  concealment,  onion-release  of  fugitive  slaves, 
were  prohibited  by  the  constitution,  and  might  be 
pronounced  null  and  void  by  the  United  States  Ju 
diciary.  Had  Congress  done  no  more  than  this,  the 
rights  of  freemen  would  have  remained  "intact,  save 
in  the  check  put  upon  the  active  exercise  of  that 
benevolence  which  is  due  to  the  oppressed.  But 
the  present  fugitive  slave  law  creates  a  special  court, 
and  clothes  that  court  with  special  and  unprece- 


THE   FUGITIVE   SLAVE   LAW.  159 

dented  powers,  for  the  sole  purpose  of  accommoda 
ting  slave-holders,  by  effecting  a  speedy  reclamation 
of  alleged  fugitives.  It  is  needless  to  say  that  the 
language  of  the  constitution,  on  which  this  extraor 
dinary  enactment  depends,  gives  no  authority  to 
Congress  to  institute  any  court  whatever ;  much 
less  does  it  authorize  the  establishment  of  such  tri 
bunals  as  now  decide  the  fate  of  those  whom  slave 
holders  claim  as  their  property. 

Freemen  are  liable  to  ~be  enslaved. 

It  is  true  that  the  innocent  are  always  liable  to 
be  ensnared,  by  laws  intended  only  for  the  guilty, 
but  the  danger  in  this  instance  is  pre-eminent  and 
needless.  Evidence,  exceedingly  scant,  and  drawn 
from  remote  sources,  and  even  from  questionable 
persons,  is  allowed  to  fix  the  doom  of  a  man  forever, 
and  all  his  children  after  him.  The  jury — that 
palladium  of  legal  rights — is  dispensed  with,  as 
though  it  were  not  safe  to  adjudicate  claims  to  prop 
erty  consisting  in  man,  with  the  same  care  that  is 
necessary  when  the  property  in  dispute  is  a  horse ! 
The  constitution,  in  allowing  the  slave-holder  to  re 
claim  his  slave,  cannot  be  understood  as  waiving 
the  ordinary  forms  of  justice,  by  which  human 
rights  are  settled.  Why  such  despatch  in  a  matter 
of  such  inconceivable  importance  to  one  of  the  par 
ties  litigant  ?  Even  conceding  that  the  slave,  though 
a  man,  can  never  be  entitled  to  the  rights  of  man, 
why  shall  other  men — the  free-born  blacks,  who 


160  THE    HIGHER   LAW. 

are  not  slaves,  and  never  were — be  subjected  to  this 
imminent  peril  ?  The  law  exposes  every  colored  man 
in  the  free  states  to  the  rapacity  of  kidnappers. 
Under  the  pretence  of  accelerating  the  reclamation 
of  fugitives,  it  breaks  down  all  the  barriers  of  free 
dom,  and  consigns  the  unoffending  freeman  to  hope 
less  bondage.  This  would  be  quite  consistent  in  a 
slave  state,  where  all  colored  men  are  considered 
lawful  prey ;  but  it  is  monstrous  in  a  state  where 
personal  rights  are  sacred,  whatever  may  be  the 
complexion  of  the  skin. 

It  exacts  of  freemen  a  service  which  they  cannot 
conscientiously  render. 

The  law  not  only  secures  the  rendition  of  slaves, 
but  compels  northern  men  to  lend  themselves  as  in 
struments  in  this  abominable  work.  Thus,  a  man 
who  abhors  slavery  as  he  does  murder,  must  pay  a 
line,  and  perhaps  suffer  imprisonment,  or  assist  the 
proper  authorities  in  remanding  the  fugitive  to  his 
chains.  The  constitution' — sadly  as  it  compro 
mises —  has  nothing  of  this;  it  barely  gives  the 
slave-owner  permission  to  recover,  by  such  means  as 
may  be  in  his  power,  the  man  who  flees  from  him. 
But  by  this  regulation,  men  who  scorn  the  unholy 
business  of  slave-holding  and  slave-catching,  are 
forced  to  engage  in  it,  or  openly  resist  the  law  and  in 
cur  its  penalties.  Surely,  it  was  enough  that  all 
the  generous  and  humane  feelings  of  freemen  should 
be  stifled,  or  restricted  to  a  merely  faithful  investi- 


THE   FUGITIVE   SLAVE   LAW.  161 

gatioii  of  the  slave-holder's  claim,  without  this  ne 
cessity  of  defiling  themselves,  by  assisting  to  mana 
cle  one  whose  right  to  liberty  is  at  least  as  good  as 
their  own,  and  whose  misfortunes  commend  him  so 
powerfully  to  every  philanthropic  mind.  Let  men 
who  believe  it  right  to  rob  the  colored  man,  do  this 
work  if  they  will,  but  let  no  other  man  be  com 
pelled  to  aid  them  in  the  crime. 

It  makes  the  free  states  slave  hunting-ground . 

Not  content  with  denying  all  aid  to  the  slave, 
this  law  makes  him  an  object  to  be  sought  with 
avidity  through  every  free  state  in  the  Union.  It 
converts  the  non-slave-holding  states  into  a  vast 
theatre  for  slave-catching.  Africa  itself  could  hard 
ly  afford  better  facilities.  Any  man  at  the  South 
who  may  wish  to  increase  his  slave  population,  has 
only  to  make  an  incursion  upon  the  North,  and  seize 
negroes  wherever  he  meets  them.  This  done,  the 
smothered,  summary,  mock  trial  which  follows,  af 
fords  but  a  slight  obstacle  to  success.  Never  had 
kidnapping  greater  conveniences ;  never  had  ava 
rice,  lust,  and  cruelty,  a  better  chance  to  prey  upon 
the  innocent  and  the  helpless.  The  free  colored 
people  of  the  North  are  literally  given  up  to  destruc 
tion,  and  the  whole  country  is  made  a  recruiting 
ground  for  slavery.  A  business  —  slave-import 
ing — which  the  federal  government  justly  treats  as 
piracy,  when  carried  on  between  Africa  and  this 
country,  is  sanctioned  and  vindicated  on  the  soil  of 


162  THE   IIIGHEK    LAW. 

every  free  republican  state.  To  seize,  or  even  to 
purchase  slaves  in  a  foreign  land,  and  bring  them 
home,  is  death ;  but  they  may  be  seized  and  im 
ported,  by  government  authority,  and  at  government 
expense,  too,  from  any  neighboring  state  in  the  Un 
ion.  This  is  the  climax  of  horrors. 

The  expense  of  recovering  slaves  is  unjustly  thrown 
upon  the  national  treasury. 

It  would  be  exceedingly  wrong  in  a  slave-holding 
state  to  make  the  treasury  sustain  such  a  burden, 
unless  all  were  slave-holders,  and  had  an  equal  in 
terest  in  the  re-capture  of  fugitives.  But  the  wrong 
is  greatly  enhanced  when  the  expense  devolves  on 
the  general  government,  whose  revenues  are  chiefly 
derived  from  non-slave-holding  states.  The  consti 
tution  gives  no  intimation  of  such  an  expenditure, 
and  we  cannot  believe  that  either  the  framers  of 
that  instrument,  or  the  people  who  adopted  it,  would 
have  consented  to  such  an  arrangement.  As  well 
might  the  cost  of  returning  stray  cattle  or  horses  be 
charged  to  the  nation.  Slaves  are  held  as  personal 
property,  and  it  was  quite  enough  that  the  free 
states  should  be  prohibited  the  exercise  of  hospital 
ity  towards  them,  without  being  compelled  to  share 
in  the  expense  of  their  re-enslavement.  Yes,  it.  was 
enough  that  they  must  witness  the  hunting  of  slaves 
in  their  midst,  and  on  their  own  free  soil,  without 
being  obliged  to  defray  the  cost  of  such  an  infamous 
transaction. 


TIIE   FUGITIVE   SLAVE   LAW.  163 

It  makes  the  United  States  a  slave-holding  nation. 

The  constitution  does  but  tolerate  slavery,  where 
as  the  fugitive  slave  law  endorses  and  approves  it. 
The  former  was  only  a  compromise  measure,  in 
which  nothing  was  granted  that  could  be  withheld ; 
the  latter  is  a  voluntary  grant  of  every  thing  that 
could  be  granted.  The  latter,  we  are  aware,  was 
intended  as  a  compromise,  but  it  is  not  so  much  a 
compromise  as  a  surrender.  It  yields  to  the  slave- 
catcher  all  that  the  most  unbounded  cruelty  and  in 
satiate  avarice  could  demand.  It  takes  from  the 
African  race  all  humanity,  in  all  parts  of  the  nation, 
and  makes  freemen  every  where  the  servile  tools  of 
slaveocratic  injustice.  Until  this  infamous  conces 
sion,  the  non-slave-holder  might  regard  himself  as 
free  from  all  positive  connection  with  slavery.  Nei- 
their  his  hands  nor  his  money  were  at  the  command 
of  the  slave-holder ;  but  under  this  law,  no  man 
is  exempt.  Slave-catching  has  become  a  national 
business,  and  every  man  is  compelled  to  engage  in 
it.  Thus  quickly  has  the  bare  permission  to  re-cap 
ture  fugitive  slaves  among  us,  ripened  into  an  obli 
gation  to  do  this  work  ourselves. 

These  are  the  principal  features  of  this  strange 
piece  of  legislation.  We  have  no  wish  to  exaggerate 
its  defects,  and  certainly  they  are  beyond  apology. 
The  studied  contempt  with  which  it  treats  the  free 
men  of  the  !N"orth,  could  hardly  have  been  greater, 
and  is  unusual ;  but  its  persevering  inhumanity  to 


164:  THE   HIGHER   LAW. 

the  negro  is  only  characteristic,  and  not  excessive 
beyond  precedent.  Towards  him,  legislation  long 
since  did  its  worst ;  there  was  no  new  degree  of 
oppression  to  be  reached ;  his  rights  had  all  been 
utterly  swept  away  before.  Of  course,  this  must 
be  understood  of  the  slave  states,  as  the  national 
government,  though  crippled  by  compromise,  had 
not,  until  the  enactment  of  this  law,  arrayed  itself 
on  the  side  of  the  oppressor.  The  African,  when 
not  a  slave,  was  treated,  if  not  like  other  men,  yet 
like  a  human  being — like  one  to  whose  interests  the 
law  was  not  wholly  indifferent — like  one  who  was 
to  be  protected,  rather  than  destroyed  by  venge 
ful  statutes. 

We  are  very  sorry  the  constitution  contains  any 
thing  that  can,  in  the  remotest  degree,  be  pressed 
into  this  slave-catching  business.  When  men  have 
had  the  courage  and  adroitness  to  throw  off  their 
chains,  they  certainly  ought  to  meet,  at  the  hands  of 
a  government  which  began  its  own  career  by  an 
nouncing  "that  all  men  are  created  equal,"  some 
thing  better  than  a  re-enslavement.  But  the  consti 
tution  is  not  justly  chargeable  with  the  present 
fugitive  slave  law.  The  former  is  to  the  latter,  as 

"•  Hyperion  to  a  Satyr." 

There  neither  is,  nor  can  be,  any  sort  of  resemblance 
between  the  two,  except  that  both  are  entities.  Our 
chary  constitution,  too  scrupulous  and  sensitive  to 
0 pollute  itself  with  even  the  word  slavery,  cannot, 
with  decency,  be  made  responsible  for  the  grand 


THE   FUGITIVE   SLAVE   LAW.  165 

kidnapping  law  under  which  slave-holders  are  now 
rioting. 

Surely  there  is  nothing  in  it  that  forbids  a  trial 
by  jury,  or  that  mulcts  with  heavy  damages  men 
who  cannot  conscientiously  engage  in  slave-catch  • 
ing — nothing  that  makes  the  general  government 
pay  all  expenses  of  returning  fugitives,  or  that  obli 
gates  it  to  create  a  special  court,  and  to  endow  that 
court  with  dangerous  powers,  for  the  re-capture  of 
slaves.  Simply  requiring  a  state  not  to  pass  a  law 
enfranchising  the  slave  who  comes  within  its  bounds, 
and  requiring  further,  that  the  fugitive  shall  be  giv 
en  up,  cannot,  without  the  greatest  violence,  be 
construed  into  such  a  disgraceful  and  ruinous  thing 
as  is  the  fugitive  slave  law.  We  have  a  law  re 
quiring  prisoners  and  felons  who  have  escaped  to 
other  states,  to  be  given  up  on  the  requisition  of  the 
governor ;  but  the  slave  is  not  dignified  with  any 
form  of  requisition — he  is  prosecuted  and  taken 
back  with  less  ceremony  than  a  common  felon.  And 
be  it  remembered,  that  all  free  colored  men,  yes, 
and  all  free  white  men,  are  every  hour  exposed  to 
this  summary  process.  The  fugitive  slave  law  knows 
nothing  of  color  :  it  takes  effect  on  "  persons  held  to 
labor,"  be  they  white  or  black,  and  tries  them  with 
whatever  of  evidence  may  chance  to  be  at  hand. 

Congress  was  supporting  the  constitution  at  a 
strange  rate,  when  it  receded  more  than  two  centu 
ries  and  made  this  fugitive  law.  A  little  more  such 
support,  and  our  political  fabric  will  tumble  into 
8* 


166  THE   HIGHEE   LAW. 

chaos.  Such  bungling  is  too  horrible  for  endurance ; 
and  it  is  especially  insupportable  when  charged  up 
on  the  patriotic  fathers  of  the  republic — men  who 
abolished  the  slave  trade,  and  who  did  all  in  their 
power  to  abolish  slavery  at  home. 

Some  additional  features  of  this  law,  together 
with  its  practical  workings,  are  very  forcibly  ex 
pressed  in  the  following  extract : 

"There  are  reasons  intrinsic  to  the  bill,  that  will  make  it 
a  loathing,  and  will,  when  it  comes  to  be  fully  known,  make 
it,  we  believe,  the  most  odious  act  with  which  flagitious 
legislation  ever  abused  public  confidence. 

"  One  would  have  thought  that  an  end  so  atrocious  as 
this  legal  slave  trade  —  as  much  worse  than  African,  as  it 
is  worse  to  steal  a  man  conscious  of  worth  and  eager  for 
liberty,  than  it  would  be  to  steal  a  wild  savage,  ignorant  of 
rights  and  dignities,  should  have  been  sought  in  the  most 
gentle  and  unobtrusive  ways.  But  no.  It  breaks  in  upon 
the  community  like  a  hyena.  It  prostrates  the  great  barri 
ers  which  civilization  has  erected  about  individual  rights  — 
the  habeas  corpus  act,  the  right  of  trial  by  jury,  and  often 
practically  the  right  to  confront  one's  accusers.  That  noth 
ing  might  be  wanting  to  render  an  infamous  thing  consist 
ently  infamous  throughout,  the  bill  provides  a  bribe  of  five 
dollars  to  the  commissioner  for  every  man  tried,  and  tea  for 
every  man  convicted !  Five  dollars  for  acquittal  and  twice 
as  much  for  conviction! 

"Here  is  a  government  agent,  with  the  powers  of  a  civil 
court,  whose  salary  depends  upon  the  number  of  cases  he 
can  biing  before  him,  and  doubles  whenever  he  convicts 
the  arraigned !  Who  would  go  before  a  court  of  his  coun 
try  if  he  knew  that  the  judge  had  a  pecuniary  interest  in 


THE    FUGITIVE   SLAVE   LAW.  167 

his  conviction  ?  And  yet  the  rights  and  liberties  of  thou 
sands  and  thousands  of  men  are,  under  this  bill,  to  be  adju 
dicated,  without  tiial  by  jury,  without  appeal,  upon  testi 
mony  unregulated,  save  by  the  judgment  of  the  commissioner, 
who  is  made  personally  and  pecuniarily  interested  in  every 
conviction ! 

"  There  is  one  deep  lower  yet  If  a  wretch,  endeavoring 
to  escape  the  fangs  of  this  venomous  reptile,  this  coil  of  ser 
pents,  be  aided  by  a  humane  man,  heavy  fines  and  bonds 
await  such  beneficence! 

"  Ought  they  to  be  deemed  prudent  men  or  safe  guides, 
who  assure  the  South  that  such  a  law  will  be  executed  ia 
the  North  ? 

"  Yet  there  are  some  reasons  why  we,  too,  rejoice  in  the 
execution  of  this  law. 

"  We  are  glad,  because  every  slave  taken  from  our  midst 
back  to  slavey  is  an  appeal  to  humanity  against  oppression. 
It  is  bringing  the  abomination  of  slavery  to  our  very  door. 
We  are  not  obliged  now  to  stretch  our  eyes  across  the 
ocean  to  Africa,  to  see  men  snatched  up  as  they  fly  from 
burning  villages  or  captured  in  war,  and  shipped  for  Chris 
tian  markets.  Slave  catching  may  now  be  pursued  in  New 
York,  in  Boston,  in  Pittsburgh,  in  Cincinnati.  It  requires 
but  two  lying  witnesses  to  doom  any  black  man.  It  re 
quired  only  three  hours  to  convert  a  respectable,  honest, 
industrious  free  laborer  in  our  streets  into  a  slave  under  the 
plantation  lash.  When  these  things  are  done  in  the  South 
they  get  cool  before  they  reach  us ;  but  now  we  are  to  have 
slave-hunting,  slave-catching  and  slave-making  on  our  own 
premises.  Is  it  by  such  means  that  the  public  mind  is  to 
be  quieted?  Is  this  the  way  to  avoid  and  allay  excite 
ment,  of  which  certain  presses  have  had  such  dread  ?  Will 
there  be  no  violence,  no  bloodshed  among  those  poor  fugi- 


168  THE   HIGHER   LAW. 

lives,  whose  love  of  liberty  is  as  strong  as  ours,  and  who, 
like  us,  would  sooner  die  than  go  into  slavery  ?  Are  the 
arguments  to  which  we  are  to  yield  our  anti-slavery  doc 
trines,  irons  on  honest  men's  wrists  ;  families  broken  up  — 
a  Hallet  at  one  blow  struck  out  of  the  catalogue  of 
men,  his  wife  and  children  left  without  even  the  privilege 
of  saying  farewell?  Are  these  to  be  means  of  grace  to  all 
who  have  agitated  the  public  in  the  matter  of  slavery  ? 

"  We  '  rejoice,'  too,  that  we  are  spared  any  farther  argu 
ment  against  the  abominations  of  the  fugitive  slave  bill. 
That  bill  is  now  pleading  against  itself.  The  law  doing  its 
work,  is  the  only  argument  needed  for  men  whose  hearts 
are  flesh.  While  the  bill  was  at  Washington  it  was  a  mere 
shadow.  It  was  not  possible  to  make  our  citizens  feel  that 
the  public  men,  whom  they  revered,  could  give  voice  and 
vote  for  anything  really  inimical  to  liberty.  Bu  it  is  no 
shadow  now.  The  law  stanc  s  in  our  streets —  with  eye  of 
fire  searching  every  trembling  black  man ;  with  feet  of  wind 
it  pursues,  and  with  hands  of  iron  it  grasps  him.  The  bill 
is  in  our  courts.  The  officers  obey  it.  Judges  and  com 
missioners  are  crouching  before  it.  Slavery  has  its  guar 
dian  genius  spreading  its  dragon  wings  over  the  bench  of 
justice,  and  beneath  its  frown  our  officials  quail  and  yield  ? 
Overawed,  they  will  ^ive  up  the  slave,  that  is  no  slave, 
but  of  right,  in  his  own  blood,  and  by  the  blood  of  Christ, 
a  freeman !  It  is  good  for  our  reflecting  men  to  see  these 
things.  We  protested  against  the  bill  while  it  was  travail 
ing  in  birth.  Our  words  only  brought  reproaches.  Since 
then,  the  thing  must  come,  we  are  glad;  we  'rejoice,'  that 
sober  and  humane  men  will  deal  no  longer  with  an  ab 
straction,  but  are  forced  to  see  a  living  law  feeding  on 
injustice,  and  spewing  blood  in  our  streets. 

"  WTe  '  rejoice'  that  men  who  have  tasted  of  liberty,  who 


THE   FUGITIVE   SLAVE   LAW.  169 

have  been  made  intelligent  by  it,  if  sent  back  to  sla 
very,  will  not  go  as  they  came.  They  return  missionaries, 
teachers  of  liberty  and  escape  wherever  they  go.  Put 
them  in  prison,  put  them  in  coffles,  send  them  in  gangs 
southward;  prisons,  irons,  travel  and  the  biting  lash  will 
never  obliterate  what  they  have  learned.  It  is  a  wonderful 
providence  that  the  South  should  send  their  shrewdest 
slaves  to  the  North,  until  they  have  become  thoroughly 
trained  to  liberty,  and  then  send  for  them  to  come  back, 
and  spread  the  infection  from  plantation  to  plantation ! 

"  We  solemnly  appeal  to  Christians  of  every  i:ame,  to  all 
sober  and  humane  men,  unwrenchcd  by  party  feelings,  to 
all  that  love  man,  to  behold  and  ponder  this  iniquity  which  is 
done  among  us!  Shall  an  army  of  wretched  victims,  with 
out  a  crime,  unconvicted  of  wrong,  pursuing  honest  occupa 
tions,  be  sent  back  to  a  loathed  and  detestable  slavery? 
Here  is  no  'abstract'  question.  We  ask  you,  shall  men 
now  free — shall  members  of  the  church — shall  children 
from  the  school — shall  even  ministers  of  the  gospel — be 
sczied,  ironed,  and  in  two  hours  be  on  the  road  to  a  servi 
tude  to  them  worse  than  death? 

"  For  our  own  selves,  we  do  not  hesitate  to  say,  what 
every  man  who  has  a  spark  of  manhood  in  him  will  say  with 
us,  that  no  force  should  bring  us  into  such  horrible  bond 
age.  Before  we  would  yield  ourselves,  or  go  aw.-iy  to  linger 
and  long  for  death,  through  burning  years  of  injustice,  we 
would  die  a  thousand  deaths.  Every  house  should  be  our 
fortress;  and  when  fortress  and  refuge  failed  us,  then  our 
pursuers  should  release  our  souls  to  the  hands  of  God  who 
gave  them,  before  they  should  degrade  them  by  a  living  sla 
very!  Who  .shall  deny  these  feelings  and  such  refuge  to 
a  black  man? 

"  With  such  solemn  convictions,  no  law,  impious,  infidel 


170  THE   HIGHER   LAW. 

to  God  and  humanity,  shall  have  respect  or  observance  at 
our  hands.  We  desire  no  collision  with  it.  We  shall  not 
rashly  dash  upon  it.  We  shall  not  attempt  a  rescue,  nor 
interrupt  the  officers,  if  they  do  not  interrupt  us.  We  pre 
fer  to  labor  peacefully  for  its  early  repeal,  meanwhile  saving 
from  its  merciless  jaws  as  many  victims  as  we  can.  But  in 
those  provisions  which  respect  aid  to  fugitives,  may  God  do 
so  to  us,  yea,  and  more  also,  if  we  do  not  spurn  it  as  we 
would  any  other  mandate  of  satan.  If  in  God's  Provi 
dence,  fugitives  ask  bread  or  shelter,  raiment  or  convey 
ance,  at  our  hands,  my  own  children  shall  lack  bread  before 
they  ;  my  own  flesh  shall  sting  with  cold  ere  they  shall  lack 
raiment.  T  will  both  shelter  them,  conceal  them,  or  speed 
their  flight;  and  while  under  my  shelter,  or  under  my  con 
voy,  they  shall  be  to  me  as  my  own  flesh  and  blood ;  and 
whatsoever  defence  I  would  put  forth  for  my  own  children, 
that  shall  these  poor,  despised  and  persecuted  creatures 
have  in  my  house  or  upon  the  road.  The  man  who  shall 
betray  a  felloAv  creature  to  bondage,  who  shall  obey  this 
law  to  the  peril  of  his  soul,  and  to  the  loss  of  his  manhood, 
were  he  brother,  son  or  father,  shfcll  never  pollute  my  hand 
with  grasp  of  hideous  friendship,  or  cast  his  swarthy  shadow 
across  my  threshold!  For  such  service  to  those  whose 
helplessness  and  poverty  make  them  peculiarly  God's  chil 
dren,  I  shall  cheerfully  take  the  pains  and  penalties  of  this 
bill.  Bonds  and  fines  shall  be  honors;  imprisonment,  and 
suffering  will  be  passports  to  fame,  not  long  to  linger!  It 
is  a  joy  and  glory  to  believe  that  in  these  sentiments,  sub 
stantially,  the  citizens  of  the  North  solemnly  acquiesce." 

That  this  law  has  been  executed  with  character 
istic  atrocity,  is  evident  from  the  entire  series  of 
arrests  which  have  taken  place  under  it.  In  scarce 


THE   FUGITIVE   SLAVE   LAW.  171 

a  singe  instance  have  the  proceedings  exhibited  any 
thing  like  a  careful  and  impartial  judicial  investi 
gation. 

REFLECTIONS. 

"We  may  well  pause,  at  this  stage  of  the  argu 
ment.  Enough  has  been  exhibited  to  show  the 
true  character  of  slavery,  and  of  that  perverted 
legislation  which  upholds  it.  Can  such  a  cata 
logue  of  enormities  find  any  support  or  countenance 
among  honest  men  ?  Especially,  can  it  plead  the 
sanction  of  Scripture  ?  To  ask  these  questions  is  to 
answer  them — -it  being  impossible  that  the  heart  of 
man,  or  the  word  of  God,  should  approve  of  such 
abominations.  Either  there  is  no  difference  between 
right  and  wrong — no  such  thing  as  virtue — or  sla 
very  is  a  crime  of  the  deepest  dye.  But  moral  dis 
tinctions  are  too  firmly  fixed  in  man,  and  in  all 
things  around  him,  not  to  be  seen  and  recognized. 
They  must  be  admitted  and  approved,  however 
painful  or  strange  the  evasions  that  may  follow.  It 
is  this  necessity  which  has  put  slavery  on  its  de 
fence — nay,  has  driven  it  to  the  awful  extremity  of 
denying  the  supremacy  of  God,  in  his  word  and 
works.  This  antagonism  was  not  of  choice — it 
came  unavoidably.  Slavery  must  stand  convicted 
of  every  offence,  or  impeach  the  tribunal  before 
which  it  was  arraigned.  It  preferred  the  latter: 
hence  this  demonstration  against  the  higher  law. 
Nature  having  fixed  the  stamp  of  humanity  upon 


THE   HIGHER   LAW. 

the  negro,  would  not  betray  him  to  the  lust  and  cu 
pidity  of  the  slave-holder,  therefore,  nature  must  be 
repudiated.  The  Bible,  equally  unyielding  in  its 
impartial  distribution  of  rights,  and  withal,  openly 
asserting  its  own  superiority  to  all  laws  that  man 
can  ordain,  must,  of  course,  be  renounced :  not  in 
form,  to  be  sure,  but  substantially,  by  a  new  and 
flagrant  antinomianism.  Better  so,  however,  than 
by  any  means  to  have  introduced  confusion,  and 
thus  obscured  our  moral  perceptions.  This  rejec 
tion  of  the  higher  law,  as  unfitted  to  regulate  the 
government  and  legislation  of  slave  states,  is  the 
homage  which  vice  must  ever  pay  to  virtue.  This 
dis-fellowship  which  slavery  seeks,  marks  its  deprav 
ity  as  with  a  sun-beam. 

The  question  now  is,  whether  we  shall  continue 
to  endure  a  system  which  thus  slinks  away  from 
the  light — which  can  have  no  fellowship  with  good 
ness —  no,  not  even  with  God  himself,  because  of 
his  purity.  Can  the  common  sense  of  man  tolerate 
a  system  so  black  with  abominations  that  it  must 
flout  decency  as  well  as  piety  ?  Shall  we  still  legis 
late  against  crime,  and  yet  allow  this  aggregation 
of  all  crimes  to  pass  unreproved  ?  It  would  seem, 
that  the  time  has  come  for  men  who  cultivate  vir 
tue,  and  who  cherish  a  righteous  repugnance  to  sin, 
to  gather  up  the  moral  force  of  their  souls,  and  give 
the  world  some  adequate  demonstration  of  their  ab 
horrence  of  a  system  of  such  extensive  and  unmiti 
gated  wickedness. 


THE    FUGITIVE    SLAVE   LAW.  173 

How  long  shall  a  nation  of  such  exquisite  moral 
refinement,  and  such  jealous  regard  to  political 
rights  as  not  to  endure  even  a  questionable  tax, 
hesitate,  when  called  to  decide  on  the  rights  of  three 
millions  of  unoffending  citizens  ?  Shall  we  have 
the  indecency  to  claim  liberty  for  ourselves,  and 
deny  it  to  others,  who  are  guilty  of  no  crime  ?  That 
the  African  is  black,  must  be  admitted,  but  will 
any  one  prjtjud  that  this  is  a  suffi.djnt  reason  for 
depriving  him,  not  only  of  liberty,  in  the  common 
acceptation  of  the  term,  but  of  all  the  rights  of  hu 
manity  ?  Is  the  color  of  the  skin  what  constitutes 
the  difference  between  man  and  the  brutes  ?  Dare 
any  man  attempt  to  maintain  such  an  absurdity  ? 
If  not,  why  then  do  we  adhere  so  pertinaciously 
to  this  unparalleled  abuse  ? 

The  fact  is,  this  question  ought  never  to  have 
been  debated.  It  is  plain,  beyond  the  need  of  ar 
gument.  The  rights  of  the  African  constitute  one 
of  those  first  truths  which  are  to  be  acknowledged 
at  sight.  All  who  allow  to  the  negro  manhood, 
are  bound  to  allow  him  the  inalienable  rights  of 
manhood.  Under  any  ordinary  state  of  things,  so 
plain  and  palpable  a  truth  could  not  require  even 
to  be  stated  in  order  to  be  approved.  The  common 
sense  of  mankind,  when  not  misled  by  interest  or 
by  education,  is  always  sufficient  to  induce  assent 
to  such  a  truth,  without  the  formality  of  argument. 
But  we  have  fallen  upon  strange  times,  and  the 
most  sacred  rights  must  either  be  defended  by  argu 
ment,  or  be  trampled  in  the  dust. 


174:  THE    HIGHER    LAW. 


CHAPTER  XIV. 
CONSTITUTIONS  AND  COMPEOMISES. 


BUT  what  is  more  astonishing  than  any  thing  else 
in  this  history  of  crime,  is  the  apology  so  often  made 
for  it — slavery  is  constitutional!  The  slave  laws 
are  traced  to  the  constitutions  of  the  several  slave- 
holding  states,  and  the  fugitive  slave  law  is  referred 
to  the  constitution  of  the  United  States,  as  though 
the  constitutionality  of  these  laws  fully  justified 
their  atrocity.  It  surely  must  be  a  corrupt  fountain 
that  sends  forth  such  pointed  streams,  and  we  may 
well  inquire,  by  what  authority  any  constitution, 
whether  of  a  single  state,  or  of  all  the  states  com 
bined,  thus  strikes  down  the  liberties  of  a  particu 
lar  class. 

1.  If  one  man's  rights  may  be  sacrificed  by  the 
constitution,  then  another's  may  be,  and  so  on,  till 
all  except  the  usurping  few  are  reduced  to  vassal 
age.  Let  it  be  granted  that  a  constitution  may 
rightfully  be  so  framed  as  to  enslave  one  man,  or 
one  class  of  men,  and  no  limit  can  be  assigned  to  its 
enslaving  power,  but  the  caprice  of  those  by  whom 
it  is  made.  There  is  no  rule  for  enslaving  Africans 
that  will  not  apply  just  as  well  to  white  men.  As 


CONSTITUTIONS    AND    COMPROMISES.  175 

the  right  to  make  slaves  cannot  be  conceded  with 
out  putting  every  man's  liberty  in  peril,  it  is  fair  to 
assume  that  no  such  right  now  exists,  or  ever  did 
exist.  Such  lawless,  despotic  power  was  never 
lodged  in  human  hands. 

2.  A  constitution  which  reduces  any  portion  of 
society  to  slavery,  is  only  an  instrument  of  plunder : 
it  is  the  work  of  men  combined  for  robbing.     In 
such  cases,  law — constitutional  law — is  wholly  per 
verted,  and  instead  of  being  a  blessing,  it  becomes 
the  occasion  of  inexpiable  wrongs. 

3.  To  plead  such  a  constitution  as  an  excuse  for 
slavery,  is  adding  insult  to  injury.     The  very  de 
sign  for  which  a  constitution,  or  any  vestige  of  civil 
law,  exists,  is  defeated.     The  avowed  object  of  gov 
ernment  is  protection,  and  to  say  that  the  constitu 
tion   recognizes    slavery,  is  to  say  that  the   very 
means  of  liberty  have  been  converted  into  an  engine 
of  oppression.     Law,  which  should  ever  be  not  only 
right,  but  the  guarantee  of  right,  is  itself  made  a 
crime,  and  the  cause  of  innumerable  crimes. 

4.  The  constitution  is  only  a  mere  agreement  — 
and  in  this  case  an  agreement  to  do  wrong.     It  is 
quite  certain   that  -such  agreements  or  contracts, 
made  by  men,  depend  for  their  validity  upon  their 
rectitude.     The   mere   fact  of  an   arrangement  or 
stipulation,  entered  into  by  any  number  of  men,  for 
governmental  purposes,  does  not,  in  the  least,  make 
such  an  arrangement  binding.     It  may  be  that  the 
agreement  contemplates  some  horrid  crime  —  as,  for 


176  THE   HIGHER   LAW. 

instance,  murder — -and  does  any  one  believe  that 
such  an  agreement  has  any  binding  force  ? 

5.  Men  have  no  right  to  make  a  constitution  which 
sanctions  slavery,  and  it  is  the  imperative  duty  of 
all  good  men  to  break  it,  when  made.  The  right 
to  make  laws  does  not  flow  from  a  constitution,  for 
a  constitution  is  itself  a  law  ;  it  is  a  right  which  be 
longs  to  human  nature,  and  which  that  nature  is 
bound  to  exercise  with  due  regard  to  the  eternal 
principles  of  rectitude.  The  fact  that  a  law  is  con 
stitutional  amounts  to  nothing,  unless  it  is  also 
pure ;  it  must  harmonize  with  the  law  of  God,  or  be 
set  at  naught  by  all  upright  men.  Wicked  laws 
not  only  may  be  broken,  but  absolutely  must  be 
broken ;  there  is  no  other  way  to  escape  the  wrath 
of  God.  It  is  not  optional  with  men  whether  they 
keep  such  laws  or  not ;  to  keep  them  is  death,  and 
not  to  keep  them  is  the  way  to  life. 


We  have  heard  much  about  the  compromises  of 
the  constitution,  and  men  have  shamelessly  asserted 
that  these  must  be  kept  at  all  hazards.  So  far  as 
such  compromises  are  innocent  they  may  be  inno 
cently  kept,  unless  they  are  so  foolish  as  to  amount 
to  a  perversion  of  the  common  sense  which  men  are 
always  bound  to  exercise — but  no  compromise,  hav 
ing  for  its  object  the  injury  or  spoliation  of  any  man, 
or  number  of  men,  can  be  kept  for  a  moment  by  a 
Christian.  He  has  no  more  right  to  agree  with 
others  to  strip  the  negro  of  his  political  rights,  than 


CONSTITUTIONS   AND   COMPROMISES.  177 

he  has  to  enter  into  a  conspiracy  against  the  lives  of 
his  fellow-citizens.  Still,  we  are  told  that  the  consti 
tution  requires  it,  and  therefore,  we  must  catch 
slaves  for  the  South,  just  as  though  such  an  infamous 
crime  could  be  made  obligatory  by  a  human  law. 
If  the  constitution  requires  it,  our  duty  is  to  spurn 
the  infamous  requirement,  as  we  would  a  command 
to  murder  our  best  friend ;  and  if  we  have  by  any 
means  become  a  party  to  a  wicked  compact,  which 
pledges  us  to  the  perpetual  robbing  and  degrada 
tion  of  the  negro,  we  are  under  the  most  solemn  ob 
ligations  to  amend  the  compact,  or  renounce  it  for 
ever.  We  have  a  right  to  make  compromises  in 
constitutions,  and  in  any  other  way  we  choose,  but 
no  man  has  a  right  to  do  wrong — he  may  not  sa 
crifice  another's  liberty,  nor  his  own. 

The  flippancy  with  which  this  boasted  plea  of 
constitutional  obligation  has  been  put  forth  on  all 
occasions,  has  made  it  truly  disgusting.  It  seems 
to  have  been  entirely  forgotten  that  an  agreement 
to  do  wrong  could  have  no  force — that  the  consti 
tution  must  depend  upon  its  character  for  its  au 
thority,  and  not  on  the  number  of  men  who  had 
consented  to  it,  or  the  number  of  bayonets  that 
could  be  brought  to  support  it.  Robbing,  perpe 
trated  by  whomsoever  it  may  be,  is  still  robbing ; 
nor  does  the  form,  the  manner,  or  the  instrumen 
tality  employed,  at  all  abate  the  iniquity  of  the 
deed.  It  may  be  done  by  a  constitution,  by  a  legis 
lative  enactment,  or  by  a  pistol  held  to  the  victims 


1Y8  THE   HIGHER   LAW. 

breast ;  but  in  either  case  the  wrong  is  the  same. 
The  denationalization  of  Poland  by  sovereign  prin 
ces  did  not  sanctify  the  act ;  it  was  spoliation  and 
robbery,  just  as  much  as  if  it  had  been  done  by 
private  individuals. 

We  have  then  arrived  at  this  great  truth,  that  men 
may  be  guilty  of  robbing  in  making  a  constitution  — 
yes,  the  very  worst  kind  of  robbing.  They  may 
plunder  the  helpless,  and  consign  unborn  millions 
to  hopeless  servitude.  There  is,  indeed,  hardly  any 
other  way  in  which  such  deep  and  damning  injus 
tice  can  be  perpetrated.  If  the  makers  of  law — 
whether  constitutional  or  statute — were  exempted 
from  the  usual  obligations  of  humanity,  and,  if  their 
decrees  could  have  any  authority  apart  from  justice, 
then  might  we  appeal  to  the  law  as  a  reason  for 
oppression.  But  as  the  case  now  stands,  such  an 
appeal  is  only t offering  one  wrong  as  an  excuse  for 
an  other. 

When  the  fundamental  law  of  the  land  is  proved 
to  be  a  conspiracy  against  human  rights  ;  when,  in 
stead  of  protecting  equally  and  impartially  every 
human  being  within  its  range,  it  remorselessly  and 
without  provocation,  delivers  up  large  numbers  to 
irredeemable  bondage  ;  then,  and  in  so  far,  law 
ceases  to  be  law,  and  becomes  a  wanton  outrage  on 
society.  It  is  the  predominance  of  brute  force,  act 
ing  on  the  authority  of  brute  force,  and  in  defiance 
of  the  moral  law.  Dishonesty  is  none  the  less 
dishonesty  for  assuming  the  shape  of  law ;  the 


CONSTITUTIONS    AND    COMPROMISES.  179 

drapery  in  which  it  chooses  to  appear,  neither 
changes  its  nature  nor  gives  it  authority ;  it  is  just 
as  detestable  and  unlawful  as  if  it  appeared  in  its 
true  character. 

So  much,  then,  for  the  boasted  and  revered  com 
promises  of  the  constitution.  They  show  only  that 
the  liberties  of  men  have  been  shamelessly  bar 
tered — that  proscription  was  one  of  the  terms  of 
the  compact — that  the  law-making  power,  in  its 
highest  function,  has  been  guilty  of  the  most  aggra 
vated  abuse. 

The  conclusion  of  the  whole  matter  is  this  :  Be 
fore  God  and  all  good  men,  the  slave  laws  are  a 
nullity.  Slavery  is  villainy — "the  sum  of  all  vil 
lainies" — and  CANNOT  BE  LEGALIZED. 


180  THE   HIGHER   LAW. 


CHAPTER  XV. 

EFFECTS   OF  SLAVERY   ON  THE   FREE 
STATES. 


IT  lias  been  contended  by  many,  that  the  North 
has  no  interest  in  the  question  of  slavery,  and  con 
sequently,  that  northern  men  should  not  interfere 
with  what  is  peculiarly  and  exclusively  a  Southern 
institution.  It  is  time  that  slave-holders  and  all 
others  were  undeceived  on  this  point.  The  South 
may  have  all  the  slaves,  but  they  cannot  have  all 
the  miserable  effects  of  slavery.  In  many  ways 
the  free  states  are  made  to  share  a  large  part  of  the 
evils,  which  necessarily  result  from  the  injury  in 
flicted  on  the  African  race  in  the  slave-holding 
states. 

"If  slavery,"  says  the  late  Theodore  Sedgwick,  "be  a 
bad  tiling  lor  one  half  of  the  country,  it  must  be  for  tho 
whole,  though  not  equally.  If  one  half  of  the  blood  of  tiie 
body  politic  be  corrupted,  it  is  impossible  that  the  other 
should  remain  pure.  There  can  be  no  such  thing  as  exten 
sive  political  evil  existing  in  one  part  of  a  nation,  without 
spreading  its  influence,  in  a  greater  or  less  degree,  over  the 
other,  any  more  than  there  can  be  a  great  sore  on  a  partic- 


EFFECTS   OF   SLAYEEY,    &C.  181 

ular  limb,  without  affecting  the  health  of  the  whole  body."— 
Pub.  andPriv.  Econ.:  vol.  I,  p.  248. 

Dr.  Bacon,  one  of  the  editors  of  the  Independent, 
has  recently  presented  this  subject  in  a  still  more 
forcible  manner : 

"  The  perpetuated  existence  of  slavery,  as  it  is  perpetu 
ated  in  the  states  south  and  south-west  of  Pennsylvania,  is 
a  violation  of  the  duties  which  these  states  owe  to  the  other 
states  of  the  Union.  We  of  the  free  states  have  a  right  to 
complain  of  those  states,  for  thus  violating  the  duties  of  good 
neighborhood.  What  is  it  that  they  are  doing?  They  are 
keeping — with  a  passionate  and  inflexible  will  they  insist  on 
keeping — some  three  millions  of  people,  on  the  soil  of  the 
Union,  in  a  condition  of  extreme  intellectual  and  moral  deg 
radation.  Their  laws,  instead  of  encouraging  the  improve 
ment  and  gradual  elevation  of  the  servile  class — instead  of 
doing  anything  to  humanize  them,  and  to  raise  them  out  of 
their  deep  moral  degradation — are  sternly  set  the  other 
way.  Their  laws  deny  to  the  slaves  the  right  of  acquiring 
or  possessing  property — which  is  the  first  great  stimulus  to 
civilized  industry;  and  the  same  laws  annihilate  among 
them  (so  far  as  laws  can  accomplish  so  hideous  a  result)  the 
Divine  institution  of  marriage,  the  institution  essential  above 
all  others,  to  the  development  of  human  affections  and  of 
moral  sensibilities.  Their  laws,  instead  of  making  provision 
for  educating  the  children  of  the  enslaved  population,  and 
for  training  them  into  civilization  and  a  capacity  for  com 
plete  freedom,  are  contrived  for  the  very  purpose  of  keep 
ing  that  barbarous  population  in  the  same  condition  of 
barbarism,  through  successive  generations.  Those  states,  I 
say,  have  no  right  thus  to  breed  up,  from  age  to  age,  within 
the  boundaries  of  our  Union,  great  hordes  of  barbarians, 
9 


182  THE   HIGHER   LAW. 

degraded  into  the  condition  of  well-fed  and  well-housed 
cattle,  maddened  with  the  ever  growing  sense  of  oppression, 
chafing  against  their  bonds,  ever  ready  to  burst  into  confla 
gration  and  slaughter — the  opprobrium,  the  peril,  the  clog, 
the  weakness,  the  disease  of  our  common  country.  We  of 
the  free  states  have  no  jurisdiction  or  authority  by  which 
we  can  redress  the  wrong;  but  the  wrong  we  suffer  is  no 
less  a  wrong  because  we  cannot  help  ourselves.  We  have 
no  right  of  intervention,  but  we  have  a  right  to  feel  the 
wrong  and  to  express  our  sense  of  it." — Ind.:  June  10, 1852. 

Never  was  there  a  greater  mistake  than  this,  of 
supposing  that  the  effects  of  slavery  can  be  so  com 
pletely  confined  to  the  South,  as  to  relieve  the  North 
of  all  solicitude  and  responsibility  on  the  subject. 
There  are  several  reasons  why  the  free  states  can 
never  cease  to  remonstrate  against  slavery. 

1.  The  first  is  the  common  right  of  benevolent 
regard.  As  freemen  and  as  Christians  we  ought 
to  desire  the  welfare  of  all  men,  and  to  promote  that 
welfare  to  the  utmost  of  our  ability.  Good  will  and 
philanthropy  are  not  limited  to  state  lines,  nor  are 
they  excluded  by  disfranchising  constitutions  and 
laws.  Human  sympathy  cannot  be  blighted  in  this 
way — it  will  act  in  favor  of  the  oppressed,  and 
overleap  all  the  barriers  which  wicked  legislation 
can  interpose.  Those  who  think  to  shut  up  our 
charities,  and  abridge  our  interest  in  the  common 
brotherhood  of  man,  have  plainly  miscalculated 
both  their  own  ability  and  the  character  of  those 
with  whom  they  have  to  contend.  Men  may  hold 


EFFECTS   OF   SLAVERY,    &C.  183 

slaves,  but  they  can  do  no  more;  the  power  which 
would  make  them  secure  and  give  them  public  re 
spect  is  not  theirs,  and  never  can  be.  All  men  will 
have  a  natural  right  to  remonstrate  against  the 
crime,  and  the  instinct  of  self-preservation  will 
prompt  them  to  do  whatever  they  can  for  its  extir 
pation. 

2.  Slavery  impairs  the  moral  sense  of  even  the 
non-slave-holding  states.  It  is  a  misfortune  to  be 
come  familiar  with  crime — it  weakens  the  moral 
sense.  Especially  is  this  true  where  the  crime  is  of 
a  disputed  character,  and  exists  under  cover  of  law. 
To  witness  continually  the  operation  of  such  injus 
tice — to  see  millions  of  unoffending  men  and 
women  degraded  to  the  condition  of  brutes,  being 
bought  and  sold  like  cattle  in  the  market,  and  all 
this  under  the  sanction  of  law  —  cannot  fail  to  mis 
lead  at  least  the  unwary.  Long  acquaintance  with 
the  evil  blunts  those  finer  sensibilities  on  which 
virtuous  action  mainly  depends,  and  leaves  the  in 
dividual,  or  the  community,  in  a  great  measure  cal 
lous  to  right  impressions.  Proximity  to  slavery  is, 
therefore,  dangerous  to  the  free,  and  the  depression 
of  moral  feeling  which  has  thus  been  occasioned 
throughout  the  non-slave-holding  states,  is  one  of 
the  saddest  consequences  that  could  possibly  have 
happened  to  the  North.  Were  money  or  mere 
physical  suffering  the  only  things  involved  by  this 
"  entangling  alliance,"  it  would  be  well,  but  moral 
deterioration  is  the  inevitable  result  of  such  connec- 


184:  THE   HIGHER   LAW. 

tions.  Hence  the  North  must  either  extinguish 
slavery,  or  be  fatally  corrupted  by  it.  As  a  matter 
of  sheer  self-protection,  the  discusion  must  be  kept 
up,  and  every  means  employed  for  the  extinction  of 
slavery  that  philanthropy  and  religion  can  devise. 
3.  Slavery  endangers  our  national  peace.  Of  all 
the  exciting  causes  which  have  ever  threatened  the 
existence  of  this  nation,  slavery  is  the  most  fearful. 
Indeed,  there  is  scarcely  any  other  subject  of  differ 
ence,  which  can  be  said  to  have  a  national  character. 
Other  matters  are  mostly  of  a  local  nature,  and  ad 
mit  of  easy  adjustment,  but  this  scatters  its  poison 
ous  influence  through  all  the  ramifications  of  gov 
ernment,  and  if  not  arrested,  will  ultimately  destroy 
the  noblest  political  system  the  world  has  ever 
known.  On  this  account,  if  no  other,  the  free  states 
are  deeply  concerned  in  everything  pertaining  to 
slavery.  When  the  Union  was  formed,  by  the 
adoption  of  the  present  constitution,  most  of  the 
states — all  but  Massachusetts — were  slave-holding 
states  ;  it  was,  in  fact,  a  union  of  slave-holding 
states,  and  the  evils  which  now  press  upon  us  did 
not  exist.  But  the  lapse  of  more  than  sixty  years 
has  changed  the  aspect  of  aifairs,  and  compromises 
which  were  tolerable  then  are  intolerable  now. 
States,  which  for  fifty  years  have  been  free  —  states, 
several  of  which  individually  contain  almost  as 
large  a  population  as  the  whole  Union  at  the  time 
of  its  formation — cannot  readily  acquiesce  in  ar 
rangements  made  under  circumstances  so  widely 


EFFECTS    OF   SLAVERY,    &C.  185 

different,  and  so  totally  inapplicable  to  their  present 
condition.  Slavery,  while  it  was  a  common  misfor 
tune,  could  be  borne  with  a  better  grace ;  but  since 
the  more  prosperous  members  of  the  republic  have 
thrown  it  off,  and  demonstrated  that  it  may  safely 
be  dispensed  with,  to  insist  upon  its  continuance, 
and  to  exact  for  it  all  the  concessions  which  it  gained 
in  an  earlier  day,  is  to  provoke  an  opposition  that 
must  end  either  in  the  subversion  of  slavery  or  of 
the  general  government.  Freemen  will  not  bow 
their  necks  to  the  yoke  ;  they  choose  to  exert  their 
influence  for  the  removal  of  the  evil,  rather  than 
bear  the  burden  which  it  imposes. 

4.  The  North,  by  keeping  silent  on  this  subject, 
would  not  only  be  involved  in  the  guilt  of  conniving 
at  oppression,  but  also  in  the  guilt  of  betraying  a 
most  sacred  trust — its  knowledge  of  the  superior 
advantages  of  freedom.  The  southern  states  have 
never  known  what  it  is  to  be  free ;  to  them,  eman 
cipation  appears  in  the  light  of  a  dangerous  experi 
ment.  Northern  silence  would  be  a  tacit  confirma 
tion  of  these  fears ;  it  would  say  that  we  have  no 
confidence  in  our  own  system,  and  no  wish  to  extend 
it  to  them.  It  would  be  an  unbrotherly  act  on  the 
part  of  the  free  states,  to  allow  the  slave  states  to 
grope  on  forever  in  the  darkness  and  guilt  of  sla 
very,  without  even  attempting  to  relieve  them. 
The  South  may  make  no  demand  for  this  fraternal 
assistance — nay,  it  may  positively  remonstrate 
against  it,  but  this  alters  not  the  case.  Christian 


186  THE   HIGHER   LAW. 

philanthropy  waits  not  for  a  call,  it  is  self-moved 
towards  every  scene  of  distress,  and  persists  in  its 
kind  offices,  though  often  repulsed.  How  else 
would  Christian  missions  have  been  established 
among  heathen  nations  ?  ISTot  unfrequently  have 
these  missionaries  fallen  victims  to  the  ferocity  of 
those  whom  they  sought  to  reform,  but  the  martyr 
dom  of  some  has  not  deterred  others  from  the  en 
terprise,  nor  has  it  ever  been  deemed  a  sufficient 
reason  for  abandoning  the  heathen  world  to  its  fate. 
In  like  manner,  slave-holders  may  repel  the  philan 
thropic  efforts  of  Northern  freemen  and  Christians, 
yet,  if  animated  by  the  spirit  of  their  Master,  they 
shall  not  fail  nor  be  discouraged,  till  they  have  "  set 
judgment  in  the  earth." 

5.  Again,  the  free  states  are  pervaded  by  the 
spirit  of  liberty  so  fully,  that  they  can  never  brook 
the  institution  of  slavery.  For,  although  the  para 
lyzing  influence  of  the  system  may  be  felt  disas 
trously  among  us,  yet  its  utter  injustice  and  stark 
contrariety  to  the  most  cherished  sentiments  of  free 
men,  will  always  produce  abhorrence  in  the  better 
class  of  minds.  Besides,  it  is  the  business  of  free 
men  to  promote  freedom.  This  they  do  not  so 
much  by  openly  attacking  slavery,  as  by  silently 
building  up  their  own  free  and  freedom-giving  in 
stitutions,  and  establishing,  practically,  the  right  of 
every  man  to  be  a  man.  States  which  feel  com 
pelled  thus  to  foster  liberty,  must  always  be  sapping 
the  foundations  of  tyranny.  They  can  only  be  true 


EFFECTS   OF   SLAVERY,    &C.  187 

to  themselves,  so  long  as  their  acts  tend  to  the  sub 
version  of  political  inequality  and  injustice.  Ne 
cessity  is,  therefore,  laid  upon  the  free  states  to 
make  war  upon  slavery ;  they  must  do  it  both  in 
self-defence  and  in  obedience  to  the  dictates  of  truth 
and  righteousness. 

6.  Another  cause  of  agitation,  and  the  most  sov 
ereign  of  all,  is  the  stern  demand  of  moral  principle. 
Honest  men  cannot  approve  of  robbing.  The  North 
cannot  wink  at  the  cruel  injustice  perpetrated  upon 
the  negro.  Much  less,  can  Northern  men  put  forth 
their  hands  to  aid  in  the  abominable  work.  They 
must  and  will  bear  their  testimony  against  the 
abuse,  regardless  of  the  consequences. 

In  view  of  these  facts,  we  can  see  no  prospect  of 
a  speedy  settlement,  or  indeed,  of  any  settlement  of 
this  question,  short  of  the  extinction  of  slavery. 
Christianity,  in  the  providence  of  God,  has  aroused 
the  consciences  of  men,  and  they  cannot  be  quieted 
by  the  customary  opiate — expediency.  The  virtue 
of  this  drug  seems  to  be  exhausted,  and  the  somno 
lency  which  it  once  produced,  does  not  return. 
Under  this  awakened  state  of  public  sentiment, 
compromises  are  no  longer  a  finality.  This  is 
plainly  not  the  day  for  compromises  on  moral  ques 
tions.  People  are  enquiring  not  only  for  what  is, 
but  also,  and  more  ardently,  for  what  is  right.  It 
is  felt  to  be  not  enough  that  the  African  be  left 
where  he  is — crushed  and  forlorn,  scattered  and 


188  THE    HIGHER   LAW. 

peeled  by  centuries  of  oppression.     There  is  mani 
festly  springing  up  a  tenderness  towards  the  race, 
as  one  long  misused,  and  it  is  possible  that  they 
may  yet  be  fully  brought  within  the  pale  of  human 
sympathy.     Kindly  feelings,  at  all  events,  are  pre 
vailing  in  the  hearts  of  many  Northern  men  ;  they 
cannot  see  three  millions  of  beings  converted  into 
brutes,   without    protesting   against  the   infamous 
abuse.     In   short,   slavery,   blessed   and   baptized 
though  it  may  be  by  those  who  practice  it,  is  gen 
erally  viewed  by  the  people  of  the  free  states,  as 
unmitigated  villany.     The  negro  wrhose  ignorance 
and  imbecility  should  entitle  him  to  compassion, 
and  especially  exempt  him  from  becoming  the  prey 
of  honorable  men,  is  summarily  trodden  down  and 
cut  off  from  all  the  rights  of  manhood ;  but  this 
thing  is  not  now  done  in  a  corner,  nor  with  the  con 
sent  of  all  who  witness  it ;  when  the  iron  enters  the 
colored  man's   soul  he   suffers  not  alone — intelli 
gent  Christian  men  share  with  him  the  pang,  and 
appeal  to  Heaven  in  his  behalf.     A  feeling  of  broth 
erhood   is  stirred,  and  it  has   fairly   arrested   the 
slave-holder  in  his  career;  it  demands  not  only  a 
reason  for  the  cruelties  inflicted,  but  also  a  repara 
tion  of  injuries.     It  demands  that  the  slave,  being  a 
man,  shall  be  treated  as  a  man. 


POSSIBLE   RESULTS.  189 


CHAPTER  XVI. 
POSSIBLE  KESULTS 


PERHAPS  it  is  the  design  of  Providence,  that 
American  slavery  shall  be  the  occasion  of  develop 
ing  a  principle  new  to  the  political  world,  though 
not  new  to  Christianity,  namely,  the  equality  of 
races  as  well  as  of  nations.  The  equality  of 
nations  or  governments  has  long  been  admitted, 
but  particular  races  have  preyed  upon  each  other. 
That  there  is  an  essential  brotherhood  of  man— - 
that  the  whole  human  race  constitutes  but  one  fam 
ily — that  every  man  is  the  brother  of  every  other 
man — are  great  truths,  well  understood  in  religion, 
but  strangely  at  variance  with  the  political  history 
of  the  world.  In  our  own  national  history,  the 
right  of  individuals  of  the  same  race — of  white  men 
—to  strike  for  their  liberty,  is  fully  recognized,  in  op 
position  to  the  despotisms  of  the  old  world ;  yet  we 
have  not  conceded  the  same  right  to  other  races. 
The  African  who  aims  at  freedom  we  deem  guilty 
of  a  high  misdemeanor  !  We  justly  encourage  Eu 
ropean  peasants  to  resist  oppression,  and  then  most 
shamefully  turn  to  the  negro  in  our  midst  and  de- 
9* 


190  THE   HIGHER   LAW. 

grade  him  to  the   condition  of  a  chattel.     Such 
inconsistency  has  neither  parallel  nor  excuse. 

It  may  be,  also,  that  the  scarcely  disguised  infi 
delity — the  bold  denial  of  the  higher  law,  as  con 
nected  with  civil  government — is  but  a  timely  recall 
of  the  church  and  the  country  to  the  ancient  land 
marks,  preparatory  to  new  trials  and  new  triumphs. 
Certainly  no  ground  can  be  ceded  here.  The  higher 
law  is  first,  midst,  and  last.  It  is  the  sum  total  of 
all  authority,  because  on  it  rests  whatever  of  obliga 
tion  can  be  found  in  any  human  law.  So  vital  is 
this  doctrine  of  the  Divine  supremacy,  that  with  it 
must  stand  or  fall  not  only  civil  liberty,  but  religion 
itself.  It  is  true  beyond  all  contradiction,  1.  That 
no  man  can  preach  the  gospel  without  preaching  the 
higher  law  ;  2.  That  no  man  can  believe  in  God  with 
out  believing  in  the  higher  law ;  3.  That  no  man 
can  be  a  Christian  without  keeping  the  higher  law. 
The  burden  of  every  Christian  prayer  is  that  the 
higher  law  may  be  established ;  that  the  kingdom 
of  God  may  come,  and  his  will  be  done  on  earth  as 
it  is  in  heaven.  This  loyalty  to  God  is  the  substance 
of  religion.  It  cannot  be  eradicated  from  the  be 
liever's  heart  without  destroying  the  very  substance 
of  his  faith,  and  cutting  off  all  his  hopes.  It  may 
be,  we  say,  that  this  violent  assault  upon  the  first 
principles  of  religion  is  intended  to  awaken  the 
church,  more  than  ever,  to  its  Divine  allegiance, 
and  its  distinctive  character  as  a  purely  theocratic 
institution. 


POSSIBLE   KESTJLTS.  191 

But  more  than  this.  May  we  not  hope  that  the 
thorough  christianization  of  civil  government  is  to 
be  the  issue  of  this  great  struggle?  The  perma 
nence  of  our  republic  depends  upon  the  realization 
of  this  hope.  The  crimes  of  our  country,  especially 
towards  the  African,  if  persevered  in,  will  plunge 
it  into  ruin ;  it  cannot  escape  the  common  fate  of 
evil-doers.  "While  penning  these  lines,  there  comes 
to  me  a  speech  of  Kossuth,  so  full  and  so  just  on 
this  point,  that  I  beg  the  reader's  indulgence  for  an 
extract : 

"  There  is  one  law,  the  obedience  to  which  would  prove 
a  rock  upon  which  the  freedom  and  happiness  of  nations  may- 
rest  sure  to  the  end  of  their  days.  And  that  law,  ladies  and 
gentlemen,  is  the  law  proclaimed  by  our  Saviour;  that  rock 
is  the  unperverted  religion  of  Christ.  But  while  the  conso 
lation  of  this  sublime  truth  falls  meekly  upon  my  soul,  like 
as  the  moonlight  falls  upon  the  smooth  sea,  I  humbly  claim 
your  forbearance,  ladies  and  gentlemen ;  I  claim  it  in  the 
name  of  the  Almighty  Lord,  to  hear  from  my  lips  a  mourn 
ful  truth.  It  may  displease  you ;  it  may  offend ;  but  still, 
truth  is  truth.  Offended  vanity  may  blame  me ;  power  may 
frown  at  me,  and  pride  may  call  my  boldness  arrogant,  but 
still,  truth  is  truth,  and  I,  bold  in  my  unpretending  humili 
ty,  will  proclaim  that  truth ;  I  wfll  proclaim  it  from  land  to 
land,  and  from  sea  to  sea;  I  will  proclaim  it  with  the  faith 
of  the  martyrs  of  old,  till  the  seed  of  my  word  falls  upon  the 
consciences  of  men.  Let  come  what  come  mny :  I  say,  with 
Luther,  God  may  help  me,  I  cannot  otherwise.  Yes,  ladies 
and  gentlemen,  the  law  of  our  Saviour,  the  religion  of  Christ, 
can  secure  a  happy  future  to  nations.  But,  alasl  there  is 


192  THE   HIGHER   LAW. 

yet  no  Christian  people  on  earth —  not  a  single  one  amongst 
all.  I  have  spoken  the  word.  It  is  harsh,  but  true.  Near 
ly  two  thousand  years  have  passed  since  Christ  proclaimed 
the  eternal  decree  of  God,  to  which  the  happiness  of  man 
kind  is  bound,  and  sanctified  it  with  h  s  own  blood,  and  still 
there  is  not  one  single  nation  on  earth  which  would  have 
enacted  into  its  law-book  that  eternal  decree.  Men  believe 
in  the  mysteries  of  religion  according  to  the  creed  of  their 
church;  they  go  to  church,  and  they  pray,  and  give  alms  to 
the  poor,  and  drop  the  balm  of  consolation  into  the  wounds 
of  the  afflicted,  and  believe  to  do  all  what  the  Lord  com 
manded  to  do,  nnd  believe  to  be  Christians.  No!  Some 
few  mav  be,  but  their  nation  is  not — their  country  is  not. 
The  era  of  Christianity  has  yet  to  come,  and  when  it  comes, 
then,  only  then,  will  be  the  future  of  nations  sure.  Far  be 
it  from  me  to  misapprehend  the  immense  benefit  which  the 
Christian  religion,  such  as  it  already  is,  has  operated  in  man 
kind's  history.  It  has  influenced  the  private  character  of 
man,  and  the  social  condition  of  millions;  it  was  the  nurse 
of  a  new  ci  vilization,  and  softening  the  manners  and  morals 
of  men,  its  influence  has  been  felt  even  in  the  worst  quarter 
of  history — in  war.  The  continual  massacres  of  the  Greek 
and  Roman  kings  and  chiefs,  and  the  extermination  of  na 
tions  by  them — the  all-devastating  warfare  of  the  Timurs 
and  Gengiskhans — are  in  general  not  more  to  be  met  with. 
But  though  that  beneficial  influence  of  Christianity  we  have 
cheerfully  to  acknowledge,  yet  it  is  still  not  to  be  disputed 
that  the  law  of  Christ  does  yet  nowhere  rule  the  Christian 
world." — Speech  at  the  Tabernacle,  N.  Y.,  June  21. 

To   cover  up  sin  is  not  the  way  to  prosperity. 
With  whatever  facility  we  may  barter  the  rights  of 
the  negro  by  way  of  compromise,  the  stability  of  the 


POSSIBLE   RESULTS.  193 

government  gains  nothing.  Such  policy  only  de 
ceives.  It  removes  not  the  evil,  and  its  apparent 
success  is  no  more  an  evidence  of  national  security 
than  the  hectic  flush  upon  the  consumptive's  coun 
tenance  is  a  proof  of  health.  Our  safety,  and  our 
only  safety,  is  in  bringing,  as  speedily  as  possible, 
the  principles  of  the  government  into  exact  con 
formity  to  the  gospel.  When  this  is  done,  heaven 
will  be  for  us  and  not  against  us — its  providence 
will  cease  to  trouble  us,  and  will  surely  discomfit 
our  foes. 

The  danger  occasioned  by  the  anti-Christian  treat 
ment  which  our  government  inflicts  on  the  negro, 
was  never  more  clearly  expressed  than  by  Mr.  Jef 
ferson  : 

"  Can  the  liberties  of  a  nation  be  thought  secure,  when 
we  have  removed  their  only  firm  basis — a  conviction  in  the 
minds  of  the  people  that  these  liberties  are  of  the  gift  of 
God  ?  That  they  are  not  to  be  violated  but  with  his  wrath  ? 
Indeed,  I  tremble  for  my  country  when  I  reflect  that  God 
is  just;  that  his  justice  cannot  sleep  forever;  that,  consider 
ing  numbers,  nature,  and  natural  means  only,  a  revolution 
of  the  wheel  of  fortune,  an  exchange  of  situation  is  among 
possible  events ;  that  it  may  become  probable  by  supernat 
ural  interference !  The  Almighty  has  no  attribute  which 
can  take  side  with  us  in  such  a  contest. 

"  What  an  incomprehensible  machine  is  man !  who  can 
endure  imprisonment,  and  death  itself,  in  vindication  of  his 
own  liberty,  and  the  next  moment  be  deaf  to  all  those  mo 
tives,  whose  power  supported  him  through  his  trial,  and 
inflict  on  his  fellow  men  a  bondage,  one  hour  of  which  is 


194  THE   HIGHER   LAW. 

fraught  with  more  misery  than  that  which  he  rose  in  rebel 
lion  to  oppose.  But  we  must  wait  with  patience  the  work 
ings  of  an  overruling  Providence,  and  hope  that  that  is  pre 
paring  the  deliverance  of  these,  our  suffering  brethren. 
When  the  measure  of  their  tears  shall  be  full — when  their 
tears  shall  have  involved  heaven  itself  in  darkness — doubt 
less  a  God  of  justice  will  awake  to  their  distress,  and  by 
diffusing  a  light  and  liberality  among  their  oppressors,  or  at 
length,  by  his  exterminating  thunder,  manifest  his  attention 
to  things  of  this  world,  and  that  they  are  not  left  to  the 
guidance  of  blind  fatality." — Letter  to  M.  Warville,  Paris, 
1788. 

But  if  the  evangelization  of  civil  government  be 
too  much  to  be  expected  at  present,  we  may  at  least, 
confidently  anticipate  that  this  conflict  will  result 
in  the  emancipation  of  the  colored  race.  The  dis 
cussion — barren  as  it  seems  to  many,  of  beneficial 
effects — lias  already  done  much  towards  accomplish 
ing  this  object.  True,  there  has  been  a  temporary 
tightening  of  slave  bonds  in  consequence  of  agita 
tion  ;  the  oppressor,  now,  as  of  old,  disregarding  the 
command  to  let  tbe  people  go,  has  actually  in 
creased  their  hardships.  This,  however,  no  more 
proves  tbat  the  final  issue  of  the  movement  will  not 
be  favorable,  than  any  disagreeable  sensation  pro 
duced  by  medicine  proves  that  its  ultimate  effect 
will  not  be  salutary.  Some  incidental  evils  always 
accompany  tbe  work  of  improvement.  He  who  is 
disheartened  at  such  trials,  does  not  understand  the 
economy  of  reform.  If  we  wait  till  slave-holders 


POSSIBLE  RESULTS.  195 

concur,  we  shall  wait  forever.  Such  prudence 
would  leave  every  perpetrator  of  crime  undisturbed, 
because  the  guilty  never  like  to  be  exposed.  The 
work  is  to  be  done  in  spite  of  opposition ;  not  by 
deferring  it  till  all  opposition  has  ceased.  Among 
the  most  favorable  indications,  is  the  fact  that  the 
subject  of  slavery  has  at  last  fairly  got  into  Con 
gress.  The  operation  of  gag  laws  could  not  keep  it 
out.  Neither  the  extreme  dread  of  the  South  to 
touch  the  subject,  nor  the  persevering  neglect  of  the 
North  to  give  consequence  to  anti-slavery  move 
ments,  could  check  the  progress  of  sentiment,  or 
prevent  its  approach  to  the  capitol.  The  spell  is 
broken.  Congress  cannot  avoid  the  subject  if  it 
would.  In  more  than  half  the  states  an  anti-slavery 
feeling  has  become  ubiquitous,  and  no  possible  cir 
cumstances  can  confine  this  feeling  to  northern  lati 
tudes.  It  will  flow  out  in  all  directions  ;  it  will 
pervade  the  slave  states  as  it  does  the  free,  and  the 
halls  of  legislation  as  it  does  the  social  circle. 
Happy  would  it  be,  if  the  representatives  of  the 
people  were  better  prepared  for  this  contingency. 

Extraordinary  pains  have  been  taken  to  put  down 
all  agitation.  "We  have  heard  again  and  again  of 
the  great  delicacy  of  the  subject.  Slavery  must  not 
be  discussed,  because  slave-holders  would  not  en 
dure  it.  That  time  has  passed,  and  the  government 
still  survives ;  and  that  it  will  stilljeurvive  the  most 
thorough  discussion,  as  well  as  the  most  radical  im 
provement  in  this  matter,  we  have  not  the  slightest 


196  THE   HIGHER   LAW. 

doubt.  "Why  should  it  not  ?  There  is  certainly  no 
one  aspect  of  the  question  either  impracticable,  or 
fraught  with  injury  to  the  South.  Emancipation, 
notwithstanding  the  difficulties  which  some  have 
seen  in  the  way,  is  one  of  the  most  practicable  sug 
gestions  ever  made  for  a  nation's  welfare.  Let  us 
look  at  a  few  facts. 

1.  If  the  slaves  were  white  men,  there  would  not 
be  a  single  objection  to  their  emancipation.     All 
wrould  admit  that  our  three  millions  of  slaves  ought 
to  be  freed  at  once,  and  that  they  could  just  as  well 
take  care  of  themselves  as  can  any  other  three  mil 
lions  of  white  men. 

2.  The  slaves,  when  emancipated,  will  be  more 
easily  governed  than  they  are  now,  for  the  simple 
reason,  that  they  will  be  in  their  natural  place  in 
society ;   they  will  act  as  human  beings,  and  be 
acted  upon  by  the  law  as  human  beings ;  they  will 
have  character,  and  responsibilities,  and  immunities, 
which  will  elicit  in  them,  as  in  other  men,  due  re 
gard  to  conduct.     In  a  word,  they  will  have  the 
motives  to  govern  them  that  other  people  have. 

3.  The  slaves,  when  freed,  will  be  even  more  use 
ful  to   the   white   population   among  whom  they 
live.     It  is  notorious  that  slave  labor  is  the  dearest 
labor  which  can  be  employed.     The  extreme  pov 
erty  of  the  southern  states  is  mainly  owing  to  this. 
The  men  who  tilt  the  soil  have  no  sufficient  interest 
in  their  work,  and  hence  the  country  must  always 
be  depressed.     Could  these  colored  people  be  edu- 


POSSIBLE   RESULTS.  197 

cated  and  hired,  as  laborers  are  in  the  free  states, 
their  skill  and  efficiency  would  soon  enrich  their 
employers. 

4.  Emancipation  will  be  no  less  safe  than  profita 
ble.     The  idea  of  danger  is  utterly  absurd — the 
negroes  would  be  as  harmless  as  they  now  are,  and 
more  so.     In  the  West  Indies,  where  emancipation 
has  been  tried,  it  has  led  to  no  disorder — the  poor 
colored  man  has  proved  as  quiet  as  the  poor  white 
man.     The  South  would  be  abundantly  more  secure 
in  every  respect,  if  all  her  slaves  were  raised  from 
the  irresponsibility  of  brutes  to  the  responsibility 
of  men.     It  avails  nothing  to  say  that  slaves  are  ig 
norant —  can   neither  read   nor  write — for  this  is 
precisely  the  condition  of  thousands  of  white  people 
in  this  and  every  other  country.     Many  of-our  best 
farmers  and  mechanics  have  no  education.     The 
slaves  know  enough  to  work,  and  it  would  be  well 
if  many  of  their  owners  knew  as  much. 

5.  Oppression  and  degradation  are  provocatives 
to  sedition  and  insurrection.     Let  the  galling  chains 
of  the  slave  be  broken  off,  and  let  his  attachments 
be  those  of  kind  and  honorable  dealing,  and  we  haz 
ard  nothing  in  saying  that  he  will  be  orderly  and 
confiding.     This  is  the  way  to  remove  the  perils  of 
a  slave-holding  community.     That  the  South  is  in 
danger,  may  be  true,  but  if  so,  it  is  a  danger  crea 
ted  by  its  wickedness,  and  the  only  means  of  giving 
security  is  to  banish  the  tyranny  from  which  the 
danger  arises. 


198  THE   HIGHER   LAW. 

6.  From  the  abolition  of  slavery,  the  South  has 
everything  to  hope  and  nothing  to  fear.     Not  only 
would  the  state  of  society  be  rendered  more  secure, 
but  its  property  would  be  vastly  augmented.     The 
rise  of  land  alone,  would,  in  a  single  year,  more 
than  counterbalance  all  the  nominal  losses — for  real 
losses  there  can  be  none — occasioned  by  emancipa 
tion.     Lands  now  worth  from  three  to  ten  dollars 
per  acre,  would  then  be  worth  from  fifty  to  one 
hundred  dollars  per  acre.     Besides,  the  slaves  would 
be  worth  infinitely  more  to  the  country.     Not  a 
dollar  of  property  would  be  sacrificed  by  ceasing  to 
reckon  men   as   money.     Those  who   have  lands 
should  be  made  to  set  their  slaves  free,  and  find 
the  remuneration  in  the  incrased  value  of  their  real 
estate,  while  those  who  own  nothing  but  negroes 
should  be  indemnified  to  some  extent  by  the  state, 
through  a  tax  levied  on  those  who  hold  other  kinds 
of  property.     If  cupidity  were  a  ruling  motive  with 
slave-holders,  they  would  be  gainers  by  promoting 
emancipation. 

7.  So  impressed  are  we  with  the  force  of  these 
truths,  that  we  believe  the  South  not  only  ought  to 
tolerate  discussion  on  the  subject  of  slavery,  but 
should  actually  hire  men  to  proclaim  anti-slavery 
doctrines  through  all  her  territory.     Instead  of  per 
secuting  abolitionists,  the  slave  states  should  pay 
them  a  liberal  salary,  and  increase  their  number  as 
fast  as  possible.    Emancipation  is  a  blessing  for 
which  those  states  might  pay  millions,  and  yet  be 


POSSIBLE   RESULTS.  199 

gainers ;  it  would  be  to  them  political  salvation. 
But  great  as  the  advantage  would  be,  we  may  not 
force  it  upon  them — we  are  limited  to  that  expos 
tulation  and  fraternal  entreaty  which  man  owes  to 
man.  From  the  faithful  discharge  of  this  duty, 
there  can  be  no  release. 


200  THE   HIGHEK   LAW. 


CHAPTER   XVII 
CONCLUSION. 


I  HAVE  now  only  to  suggest  certain  causes,  which, 
whatever  may  be  the  present  aspects  or  future  re 
sults  of  this  great  controversy,  must  inevitably  keep 
it  before  the  people  for  yet  a  considerable  time. 
"No  "finality"  has  been  reached,  or  can  be  reached, 
till  the  demand  created  by  these  causes  is  complied 
with.  Men  may  as  well  legislate  against  the  tides 
of  "old  ocean,"  as  against  the  essential  elements  of 
their  own  humanity.  Nature  knows  no  compro 
mises.  Nor  are  these  causes  confined  to  the  free 
states.  They  belong  to  man  as  man ;  to  the  free 
man,  the  slave,  and  the  slave-holder ;  to  all  ages, 
and  all  countries. 

1.  The  abolition  of  slavery  is  demanded  by  eter 
nal  justice.  This  is  our  answer  to  all  who  ask  a 
reason  for  emancipation.  What  justice  demands, 
it  can  never  be  sate  or  expedient  to  withhold.  If 
God  had  not  made  the  negro  a  man,  his  down-trod 
den  condition  would  have  made  no  appeal  to  heav 
en — none  to  earth.  It  would  not  have  proclaimed 
injury,  fraud,  usurpation,  and  cruelty,  perpetrated 


CONCLUSION. 


201 


by  man  upon  his  fellow  man,  without  the  slightest 
wish  or  intention  ever  to  make  restitution.  Slavery 
is  thus  in  conflict  with  the  very  foundation  princi 
ple  of  all  order.  It  strikes  down  both  the  govern 
ment  of  God  and  the  government  of  man.  By  ma 
king  a  mockery  of  justice,  it  arrays  itself  against 
the  slave-holder  no  less  than  against  the  slave.  It 
vainly  attempts  to  change  the  type  of  nature,  and 
blot  out  elements  which  the  Creator  has  made  per 
petual.  Hence,  so  long  as  man  is  man,  this  war  of 
right  against  wrong  must  of  necessity  continue — 
he  is  constitutionally  pledged  to  "  fight  a  good  fight" 
in  this  holy  cause.  To  be  indifferent  here,  is  to  sink 
below  the  dignity  of  nature,  and  take  a  position, 
which,  though  lawful  to  brutes,  is  not  to  man. 

2.  Every  other  attribute  of  God  demands  the  ab 
olition  of  slavery.  His  wisdom,  benevolence,  holi 
ness  and  power,  are  equally  opposed  to  the  degra 
dation  inflicted  upon  the  negro,  who,  no  less  than  the 
white  man,  was  made  in  his  image,  and  is  the  work 
of  his  hands.  Slavery  may  work,  but  God  is  coun 
ter-working;  his  wisdom  and  power,  his  holiness 
and  eternity,  are  a  guarantee  that  the  machinations 
of  the  wicked  shall  not  succeed.  It  matters  not 
how  men  compromise.  They  may  say,  "  "We  have 
made  a  covenant  with  death,  and  with  hell  are  we 
at  agreement ;  when  the  overflowing  scourge  shall 
pass  through,  it  shall  not  come  unto  us,  for  we  have 
made  lies  our  refuge,  and  under  falsehood  have  we 
hid  ourselves."  But  God  says,  "  Judgment  will  I 


202  THE   HIGHER  LAW. 

lay  to  the  line,  and  righteousness  to  the  plummet ; 
and  the  hail  shall  sweep  away  the  refuge  of  lies,  and 
the  waters  shall  overflow  the  hiding  place  :  your 
covenant  with  death  shall  be  disannulled,  and  your 
agreement  with  hell  shall  not  stand."  Statesmen 
may  toil  assiduously,  and  lay  their  plans  with  pro 
found  skill,  and  the  people  may  bring  their  most 
costly  offerings  to  the  shrine  of  union,  but  all  to  no 
purpose :  for  over  every  nation  that  will  not  do 
right,  "  the  line  of  confusion  and  the  stones  of 
emptiness"  are  stretched  by  an  invisible,  but  Al 
mighty  hand,  and  there  is  no  escape.  Anti-slavery 
lecturers  are  only  an  echo  of  Providence,  and  if  they 
should  cease  to  speak,  the  truths  which  they  an 
nounce  will  still  be  uttered,  but  the  disasters  atten 
dant  on  vice  will  speak  in  far  less  kindly  tone.  If 
such  lecturers  trouble  Israel,  it  is  only  as  the  faith 
ful  utterances  of  Elijah  troubled  Ahab. 

3.  The  abolition  of  slavery  is  demanded  by  the 
spirit  of  the  age.  It  is  extremely  absurd  to  con 
tinue  at  this  day  and  in  this  country,  an  institution 
befitting  only  the  midnight  of  pagan  darkness. 
When  nations  were  wholly  barbarous — when  nei 
ther  science  nor  religion  had  shed  its  mitigating 
influence  on  society,  such  flagrant  injustice  might 
be  tolerated,  but  to  attempt  it  now  is  infatuation. 
Something  may  be  achieved,  it  is  true,  by  spread 
ing  a  thick  pall  of  darkness  over  large  sections  of 
country — that  is,  by  keeping  society  still  in  barba 
rism  ;  yet  even  this  device  is  about  to  fail.  The  age 


CONCLUSION.  203 

is  happily  too  full  of  light  to  admit  of  easy  circum 
scription.  The  spirit  of  progress  stamps  slavery  as 
an  impossibility.  "We  must  either  return  to  savage 
life,  or  dismiss  this  relic  of  uncultivated  and  un- 
Christianized  times. 

4.  The  abolition  of  slavery  is  demanded  by  the 
character  of  our  own  government.     It  is  in  vain  to 
rely  on   compromises   and   exceptions,   when   the 
whole  spirit  and  substance  of  our  republican  system 
is  directly  hostile  to  slavery.     The  more  we  sustain 
freedom  for  ourselves,  the  more  we  sustain  it  for 
others  ;  republicanism,  therefore,  disqualifies  its  pos 
sessors  for  enacting  or  executing  oppressive  laws. 
Never  was  slavery  more  out  of  its  place  than  in 
this  country.     It  is  an  exotic  on  our  free  shores,  and 
must  die  because  it  cannot  live  in  an  atmosphere 
of  liberty. 

5.  The  abolition  of  slavery  is  demanded  by  com 
mon  sense.     Slavery  is  not  simply  wicked — it  does 
not   accomplish   its  ends   by   merely  unjustifiable 
means.     It  evinces  everywhere  extreme  imbecility. 
In  whatever  light  we  view   it,  it  is    a  thorough 
ly  contemptible  arrangement.     So  long  as  man  is 
rational,  he  must,  apart  from  all  moral  considera 
tions,  despise  a  system  which,  under  the  pretence 
of  doing  good,  inflicts  only  evil.     God  has  given 
men  too  much  sense,  to  admit  of  such  stupidity. 
Slavery  sinks  below  the  intellectual,  as  it  does  be 
low  the  moral  powers  of  man ;  it  belongs  to  the 
category  of  crime — a  department  in  which  folly 


204:  THE   HIGHER   LAW. 

and  guilt  are  always  combined.  If  we  cannot  have 
something  better  than  slavery,  by  way. of  civil  reg 
ulation,  let  us  have  nothing.  The  human  mind 
spurns  such  nonsense.  Reason  demands  reasonable 
laws,  or  none ;  it  insists  on  equity,  or  an  abandon 
ment  of  the  functions  of  legislation. 


14  DAY  USE 

RETURN  TO  DESK  FROM  WHICH  BORROWED 

LOAN  DEPT. 

RENEWALS  ONLY— TEL.  NO.  642-3405 

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